Nine inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV

Nine Inch Nail's last release Year Zero was a failure for Trent Reznor. Undoubtedly a good album, the label's marketing sickened Trent to the core; fans being forced to pirate or pay far more than the average price in many stores; Its viral marketing campaign and complex themes and concepts being perhaps somewhat overlooked in the face of industry profits. It was surely with this in mind that Reznor has decided to not only finally reject his label, but come out with his most challenging release yet.

Ghosts was released on the 2nd of March with as much warning as a news update a couple of weeks ago informing us... of an "update". While I was sure we'd probably have a release; and one with a unique marketing strategy too, I certainly expected something perhaps less grand, and more simply a continuation of the Year Zero project (though I imagine many will be looking for links all the same.) The basics of the release are simple yet grander and more positively pretencious than any of Trent's work yet. 36 songs, 9 totally for free - and officially uploaded to those nasty "industry damaging" torrent sites; the rest for $5 online, $10 plus shipping and handling with a physical copy; $75 for a veritable treasure trove of different formats with various other bonus items; and finally a now sold out $300 collectors edition with all kinds of extras signed by the man himself. This is quite simply the most important digital distribution release to date. Radiohead may have started it off, but Trent is doing the important part; carrying this revolution in music through to the future.

So. The music. First off the bat, it's all instrumental. No potential for Trent's quite regularly somewhat uninspiring lyrics then. What it does instead is take the hauntingly beautiful soundscapes that have been desperately trying to break out of Trent's work for years now. It's got all the staples of previous Nine inch Nails. Fuzzed out synth bass; chilling guitar noise; electronic meandering; biting drums. It's all there. The more instrumental songs of Year Zero were perhaps but a taste of things to come; or the unborn child well over due.

It's quite hard to say what the good songs are in a way, particularly given the lack of titles; though this for me separates it from the popular musical mindset. The songs truely feel like a a drifting expanse of sound. Trent describes it as music for "daydreams", with a strong emphasis on visual aesthetic in the music, and it shows. And it's brilliant. Freed from the conventions of popular demand, open to explore, with variety and excellence of production, Ghosts is a dark, beautiful, and atmospheric.

The production is consistent and excellent; a testament the team assembled. I definitely hear the effect Alan Moulder has had on the album; a regularly under-rated producer, who I've always felt deserves far more acclaim. You can certainly feel the dynamism of this very different kind of band. Nine inch Nails has consistently found itself in a peculiar position with regards to its division between live and studio performance, and listening to this and Year Zero, it is clear that the production team is getting more and more consistent yet evolutionary with each release. It's a band who has well and truely forgotten all the usual conventions.

The download comes with high quality images - essentially the stuff of album artwork, that I presume comes with the physical releases. And they are beautiful; perfectly summing up the tone of the music song by song; each image corresponding in fact to a song. Like the music, they have a strong sense of isolated beauty. Taking a look at the images as you listen certainly gives it a coherency of vision and assortment; each track an identity of its own. It's clever, powerful, and a refreshing break from the need for lyrics to give music character.

With this music in mind, it is absolutely clear that ditching the label was the best move Trent Reznor has ever made. Pitching this idea to label executives would have been deliciously impossible. You can imagine the bosses crying for lyrical hooks, or talking multiple releases, or demanding that radio friendly hit. Trent and the studio team have done something special here. Not everyone will like it. Anyone with a strong opinion on the role of music as art should seriously consider the implications of it to the industry. Musically I have to say, while unique and brilliant, it perhaps doesn't cover ground explored by other electronic artists, but none of these will quite capture peoples imagination like this most revolutionary release.

Buy this. If you care about music, buy this. If you like to think you have anything resembling taste in music, buy this. It's more important than any other big name release so far this year. This is what music is about.

It costs less than a London pint anyway.