I forgot to mention yesterday that Nine Inch Nails have a website up where most of their official session files from recording have been posted allowing anyone to make their own remix/mix of NIN songs.

The bands newest album “The Slip” (released yesterday) is featured there as well. A lot of people may have already heard about this, but for those who haven’t its worth checking out, especially if you are into recording, mixing, etc…Just to see the different tracks and how the band recorded them is interesting in and of itself.

NIN Remix Site

In a surprising move, Nine Inch Nails have posted access to a free download of their new album “The Slip” via www.nin.com. The band had been posting on their official site that a surpirse was due for Monday, May 5th.

The album is 10 tracks and is available in a variety of formats, including MP3 as well as high-quality lossless, all of which are free. Physical copies of the album will be released in July of this year through traditional distribution methods.

“A statement on the site from frontman Trent Reznor says simply, “Thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years — this one’s on me.”

Demand for the music has been high, as nin.com slowed to a crawl after the free download had been posted.

Personally, I think this is a great idea, and more importantly a great way to show appreciation to all the NIN fans out there. Nine Inch Nails is a band that has been heavily supported by its fans since the early 90’s. I am going to download a copy of the album for myself, give it some listens and post a review here. I’m curious to see if the album is similar to Nine Inch Nails last release, “Ghosts” with lots of ambient and guitar effects, or if it’s similar to their earlier material, it might be neither.

Source - Billboard.com

Nine Inch Nails have released a new single/track online called “Discipline”. As far as I can tell this wasn’t announced or anything and it appears this may be a track from a new NIN album. As Trent Reznor has done in the past, the multi-tracks for this song are also available via the bands website, www.nin.com. The song is already getting airplay on Kroq here in Los Angeles.

The band is playing a slew of dates and festivals in the US this summer so it would make sense if they were preparing for a new album release. The last NIN record “Ghosts” was more of an experimental project, so I’m curious to see if their new material is a more “proper” NIN album.

I assume the release of any new NIN record would also be handled in the same way as Ghosts, (with special edition CD/LP versions and other versions to be downloaded from the band’s website). Either way, its exciting to see what NIN will do next as they aren’t on a label and have the financial freedom to do pretty much whatever they want.

NIN Official Site

As many people probably know by now…Nine Inch Nails has self-released, (via the internet) a new 36 track instrumental album. In a fashion similar to Radiohead’s pioneering approach, whereby the band’s website offered users a choice of paying any amount they want for the album, or nothing at all. Nine Inch Nails however, offered the entire album as a $5 download through file-sharing program bit torrent, a $10 2 CD set, 9 free songs from the album or various special edition packages ranging from $75 to $300 for an ultra-deluxe limited edition package.

According to Nine Inch Nails official website, the idea for the album was to just go about an organic writing process. The process was to sort of improvise with a variety of musical instruments, including guitar effects, bass synths, etc…The result isn’t one you’d usually expect from Nine Inch Nails. I’d say it runs the gamut of really cool textures and sounds to something you’d never really want to listen to on a regular basis. Although it should be noted that this sort of thing would’ve never been possible under a major label. So it’s cool to see Trent Reznor branching out and really doing some more weird and unique things musically.

The album also reportedly went on to pull in $1.6 million in the first week alone, as the sales go to direct to the band/Trent Reznor.

Source