A piece ‘a Me

via Daring Fireball

I have to extend congratulations to John Gruber again, for another damningly accurate critique of a typical tech-fluff article. Leander Kahney wrote an article about how Apple is evil and secretive and horrid and a proper meanie.

The original article was lame. Gruber’s critique is sublime.

OK, this isn’t new, new news but it’s been a huge part of my spare time for the last week or so, Im talking about Nine Inch Nails new work, called Ghosts I-IV.

This has really hit the news because Trent Reznor, frontman of NIN, has decided to sell Ghosts direct over the internet, and has no record label deal for it. While this is a departure from the norm, I am unsurprised.

In fact I’m overjoyed. I couldn’t be happier. I ordered the CD digipak version (I’m old fashioned, I still like owning physical copies of stuff), but that doesn’t ship until April. That’s no problem though because as a gratuity you also get to download the songs in a lossless (i.e. CD quality) digital format to listen to in the mean time. As a iTunes user I chose Apple Lossless, the same format all my other NIN CDs are ripped in. All of this is DRM free and Trent is even hosting a community for remixers and artists building on the works of Ghosts, and NIN’s other works. It’s open source music… what could possibly be cooler!

As for the actual content, it’s purely instrumental, and is a huge 36-tracks long (4x 9-track EPs). As a whole work it is sublime in it’s swings of mood and variety of sound. Instrumental albums too often become repetitive or mundane, Ghosts I-IV just grows on you. The tracks, from Trent’s moody and emotional piano playing, to more industrial crash-rock, to techno-style wanderings of the surreal and energetic, it’s all really excellent stuff.

I defy you not to fall in love with the second track on Ghosts I, it’s a wonderfully peaceful and calming piano piece typical of Trent’s greatest talents, of combining his world class keyboard skills with the ability to mix a track to within an atomic radius of perfection.

For those not convinced, Ghosts I, the first 9 tracks, is available FREE with NO DRM in Lossless audio format. More details at NIN Website

I’d forgotten how much of a Joy Wordpress was to install. Seriously, it’s so smooth. Sure it takes a while to get everything in place (and I keep remembering stuff I need to do as I go along), but it’s another piece of well done Web 2.0. Oh, and it’s free, which is always great.

I have a New Blog. Joy behold.