1.31.2017

End of the Month Bitchfest - January 2017

It's funny how pointless all this seems right now. Like discussing one's favorite book of short stories while the library is on fire, trying to raise my voice to be heard over the ceiling collapsing so that I can validate my thesis about the writer's intentions behind capitalizing all the pronouns or their lack of adjectives. My thinking is that this country has endured over two hundred years and that four bad years can't do that much irreparable damage, can it? But this seems like real evil. I'm shocked and infuriated and numb while at the same time feeling completely impotent. All these petitions and witty remarks and marches and cries to release this document or investigate this claim seem kind of useless until something actually happens.

Ugh.

Fuck.

Anyway. 

The new Gorillaz ('Hallelujah Money') is dark and creepy and scary and Trump and everything is horrible. Why did I think they were going to be a fun little escape from everything to come? Idiot... One thing is for sure: Benjamin Clementine looks like a combination of Tony Todd and Mads Mikkelsen. 

The full Patriots Day score was (almost apologetically) released on the 13th. I was shocked to find it's only about an hour. The whole thing is a bit of a music sandwich with the soft and beautiful bread, and tense, fearful meat.  The deep, pulsing alarm of 'Escape' will make you want to stop listening it's so huge and threatening. The epic, dread-soaked sprawl of 'The Night Drive' is twelve minutes of nerves. And 'The Place You Are Right Now' (and its mirror, 'Long Shadows on the Street'), which travels from delicate and warm to a jagged electronic chase and back again might be the best work Reznor and Ross have done for a film since they started eight years ago on The Social Network.
 This is the most traditional score the two have ever composed, as far as that term can be applied to them.






1.05.2017

A review of Nine Inch Nails' "The Fragile: Deviations 1"



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When The Fragile was released in 1999, it was 25 songs, clocking in at almost two hours. Even back then, Trent Reznor said that there was more material, in various states, which made up about one more full disc of music. Around the tenth anniversary of the album, he started hinting at a deluxe reissue, complete with unreleased tracks and a 5.1 mix, created by himself and long time studio partner, Alan Moulder. Since then, he'd mention it occasionally; how he'd "just stumbled over some old bits and pieces or demos", how they were "working on it", etc, but nothing ever came to fruition.

At the very end of December 2016, along with the "definitive editions" of Broken, The Downward Spiral, and The Fragile*, as well as a brand new, 5-track EP entitled Not The Actual Events, Reznor released The Fragile: Deviations 1, a 37-track, all instrumental version of the 1999 release, featuring forty minutes of unreleased music**. These unreleased tracks range from completely finished pieces simply missing their vocals to demos and outlines of songs that, for whatever reason, were never completed. The entire two and a half hour journey of Deviations 1 is the definition of epic, and might be the most Nine-Inch-Nails-fan-centric release Reznor has ever unleashed. That said, it is not perfect. It is not the deluxe, cancer-curing, ultimate reissue fans have been teased with since 2009. It is something huge and strange and complicated.

For the most part, the original tracks from the album haven't undergone much transformation, with the exception of "Somewhat Damaged", "Ripe (With Decay)", "The Mark Has Been Made" and a few others, which feature some added elements here and there, and, as for the new material, it's a mixed bag. Tracks like "Missing Places" and "Feeders" don't really stand on their own and found spots on the original album as transitions, while "Taken" and "Last Heard From" seem to be little more than demos. Then there's "The March" and what was originally called "Hello, Everything Is Not OK", the former which ended up as "Skin of a Drum" from Saul Williams' The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust!, and the latter which became "10 Miles High". The three most intriguing tracks are "Not What It Seems Like"***, which builds on a simple drum loop and, through subtle layers of sound, becomes something triumphant, "White Mask" which sounds like an homage to Coil****, and "Was It Worth It?", which has an almost startlingly bright feel thanks to some straight up 80's synths in its chorus. That last one appears to only be missing lyrics.

I wanted everything. I wanted a seven-disc release with the original album in 5.1 and all previously released material (remixes, b-sides, etc.) also remastered and in 5.1. I wanted all the video content: those tiny little trailers, both of those MTV Fragility tour specials, all the music videos*****, And All That Could Have Been and its accompanying acoustic special and everything else in blazing high definition with a picture so sharp I cut my fucking eyeballs. I did not get that. I got forty minutes of new instrumentals, twelve minutes of which I really dig, and a vague promise in the form of that little number "1" appearing after the word "deviations". Is there going to be one more? Eight more? Is it going to come out this year? This decade? My logic tells me that Reznor wants to be done with this fucking thing as much as me, to just wrap things up and never have to talk about it again, but my logic also tells me that Reznor is a busy, busy man with four children, two new Nine Inch Nails albums set for release this year, and an unquenchable desire to score everything forever.

Anyway. If you're a foaming-at-the-mouth Nine Inch Nials fan or just love the everloving shit out of The Fragile, hop on over to the revamped nin.com store and pay $80 for The Fragile: Deviations 1, for which you will receive an instat wav download of the entire thing along with a fantastic digital booklet which contains some unused artwork from David Carson's original concept for the album as well as a four-LP vinyl of the record, coming this spring. 


* All meticulously restored and remastered versions of the original, vinyl releases of the albums

** If you ignore the Apple Music release of The Fragile (Instrumentals) from June of last year, which featured three of those aforementioned unreleased tracks

*** Which could be a reference/counterpoint to "Just Like You Imagined" from the original record

**** And since Jhonn Balance and Sleazy Christopherson were lurking around nothing studios recording Backwards at the time, who knows?

***** "Starfuckers, Inc." and the original "The Day the World Went Away" video included

1.01.2017

Year in Bitch - 2016

Oh, 2016. You fucking, cocksucking, whoremouthed piece of cum-drenched shit. While everyone else has this feeling that now that the calendar has slipped from 2016 to 2017 everything will be okay, I'm going to sprinkle a little piss on that particular idea right now.
First off, January 1st, 2017 is just another day. Time doesn't care how we delineate it. Time's just a concept anyway, so that's pointless. Secondly, and more importantly, we're going to keep losing the people we love and respect and worship. Not because life is unfair or your idea of god hates you, but because people who are awesome and established and have spent decades creating amazing things that change and define and improve our lives are getting older, getting cancer, and getting dead. We were told when Bowie died* and when Prince died, but, here's the thing, there's no way to know when the next Prince or Bowie will be born. And, more salt in the wound: Justin Bieber isn't going to die any time soon. Kim Kardashian isn't going to either. The good ones, the legends, are going to keep dying while we're left here to mourn them and to drown in the remaining sea of mediocrity.
Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney are going to die some time soon.
As are Mel Brooks, Steve Martin and Bill Murray.
While Kevin James, Katy Perry, Kevin Hart, Larry the Cable Guy, Iggy Azalea, and Tyler fucking Perry aren't going to die for a very, very long time.
Because life is unfair and god hates us.

That said, let's dig in!

Musically, most of my year was spent in a state of shock. Bowie and Prince, two of my favorite artists, who, in my eyes, were actually immortal, as in literally defying the effects of time itself, gone. And there's already been shitty "Best Ofs" released. Aside from those two, massive blows to the very idea of music, Beck released a song, They Might Be Giants released a song. Nothing from Eels. Nothing from Cake. Nothing from St. Vincent. Then, right at the end, we get a literal deluge: two scores and a new EP from Reznor PLUS (part of) that long rumored Fragile deluxe edition we've been promised for SIX THOUSAND YEARS. And it wasn't enough.

Anyway, primarily I listed to Blackstar, the debut from Mother Feather, the new Radiohead, and all that Q4 Reznor/Ross goodness**. More of the year was spent reading and listening to and seeing comedians I love. Michael Ian Black, Amy Schumer, Louie C.K., Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, David Cross, Patton Oswalt, Jim Gaffigan, and Dylan Moran to name a few. I also rewatched the bulk of Reno 911!; not a fantastic show, but populated, for the most part, with fantastic comedic actors. I also spent a large portion of the year creating music, which might never be heard by anyone.

All that to say: I have a very small list.

Best Song of 2016

'Blackstar' by David Bowie

This was my most played track and most viewed music video. It is, in my mind, the best track David Bowie had released since 2003's "Bring Me The DIsco King". While I'm still let down we didn't get a deeper look into this world, Bowie was never one to spoon feed things to people, and I can appreciate that.

Album of the Year 2016

Mother Feather by Mother Feather

You've heard everything I have to say about Mother Feather. You either get it, or you remain in the dark. No judgement.

Most Anticipated Release of 2017

The new Gorillaz album

I was thinking about the new Beck, but, from what's been heard, it seems like some sort of retro-backlash against the lack of mass appeal and radio singles from Morning Phase***. The third single ("Up All Night") is in both the new FIFA game and a watch commercial, and sounds like a combination of "Can't Feel My Face" and every other piece of Mindless Shit Pop from the past five years. Beck can't need money that badly, can he? But the album's never coming out, so we'll never know for sure.
That's why I'm giving it to whatever the fuck Albarn and Hewlett come up with. We're going to need some musical innovation and cartoon shenanigans in the new year, and these two are the ones to deliver it. I could also handle a double album. If you're reading this Damon.

Most Anticipated Release of 2018****

The new, full length album from Nine Inch Nails

First thought FIRST FUCKING THOUGHT when I hit the new nin.com and saw the anouncement of a brand new, 5-track EP was: "well, fuck, we're not getting a full length album for another fucking year."
I could teach Sartre a few things about pessimism.

Hopes For 2017 Which Have Yet To Be Fucked, Crushed And/Or Killed


  • I'm still holding out hope for Dial-A-Song 2017, although the Johns have made no announcements yet and 2017 starts...now, so...shit
  • Maybe some new Eels? 
  • For the new Beck to be less fluffy than these three singles have indicated 
  • For the new St. Vincent to be a quarter as impressive and elegant as her last one
  • Prince/Bowie reveal it was all a hoax and that their triple-album collabo is available for download now.
  • I don't know...either for less awfulness or to just go completely numb, fast.


* Here's a summation of David Bowie's life and career from my particular and narrow viewpoint.

** Before The Flood OST, Patriots Day OST, Not The Actual Events EP, and The Fragile: Deviations 1.

*** Yes, I know that this new one was written before Morning Phase, but time isn't a thing for Beck, obviously.

**** Yes, I also know that Trent Reznor announced on Beats1 that Nine Inch Nails will have not one, but "two new, major works" under the Nine Inch Nails umbrella, but, well, Trent Reznor announces a lot of things.