Somewhat Haunted: Nine Inch Nails' New Album, Ghosts I-IV
In a single year's time, Trent Reznor went from being that guy who wrote all those goofy industrial rock songs about how miserable he was to being the prophet of the New Age of Musical Innovation. Not only did he remake his musical image entirely with the ice-cold political dystopianism of Year Zero (Amazon link), he also ditched his record company with a fond single-finger salute to the Industry, produced Saul Williams' brilliant industrial hip-hop record The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust, opened up all tracks from Year Zero for remixing by fans and, on top of all that, began experimenting with alternate modes of delivering music to fans.
This week, Mr. Reznor delivered another independent album via the web: Ghosts I-IV (Amazon link, which I'd advise you use for now, as nin.com's server is taking a beating now). The album is a collection of 36—yes, thirty-six—short instrumentals and is available in a wiiiiiiiiide spectrum of formats from NIN.com. For instance, for $5 you can download all 36 tracks in a variety of digital formats (even FLAC and Apple's lossless format, for the fifteen-or-so people in the world who care) plus a 40-page PDF, for $10 you get the same plus a wide variety of digital extras as well as the two-CD set that will be released on April 8. There are even greater options, too, including a $300 limited edition signed by Trent Reznor himzelf!
I purchased the album last night from Amazon.com, as NIN's server was being battered something fiercely by people queuing up by the tens of thousands to grab the new stuff. I have yet to see the 40-page PDF document or any of the extras, so please be aware, this may have colored my review somewhat, as all I've heard so far are the 36 tracks; if there is any visual or ancillary material that complements it, I don't have that so far. I've just ordered the $10 option, so hopefully I'll have all that soon. But right now, this is just a review of the music and only the music.
As a writer of all-instrumental music myself, I am very familiar with a special problem inherent in any all-instrumental album: how do you keep the album from becoming boring? After all, most people are used to music with voices and lyrics these days—and even aficionados of classical music desire to hear a human voice raised up in praiseful tune every now and again, as well. The easiest, and most commonly-accepted means of keeping instrumental albums lively (outside of ambient music productions) is to vary the songs. Either feature songs with lots of internal dynamics (a la many a prog-rock masterpiece) or feature numerous shorter works. Ghosts I-IV follows the latter strategy, providing listeners with a large selection of tracks, the longest of which is a few seconds shy of six minutes, with the remainder falling in the two- to three-minute rage.
And the songs do vary. The first few tracks (all of which are simply named "1 Ghosts I", "18 Ghosts II", and such) are extremely minimalistic piano-and-feedback ambient compositions, whereas the last few tracks are propulsive rock-and-roll spasms or industrial/techno devices. Even the latter tracks, however, are fairly minimalistic—something I've noticed about Trent's new music starting with Year Zero. And that's where the problem lies.
This is background music, folks. This is incidental music for silent mind-movies. None of the tracks feature particularly catchy hooks that will snag your attention and drag the music from the back to the foreground. You may occasionally find yourself bopping along to a throbbing beat and caught offguard by a sudden, squealing guitar solo...but for the most part, the music is understated and unobtrusive. In this fashion, it is a fine example of ambient music in the vein of Brian Eno's Music for Airports. You can easily put this music on and zone out to it while writing or snoozing.
The tracks are all impeccably recorded. The low end booms beautifully (if sporadically), the mids are strong but not overly heavy, and the highs are crisp and gritty. There are some moments of funkiness, but for the most part, the album is either nearly-naked ambience or grimy industrial.
And therein lies the problem. There isn't any real texture to the tracks. The album begins almost exclusively ambient and slowly builds, track by track, toward the harder, industrialized conclusion. The ascent is so gradual it's unnoticeable. The lack of melodic hooks, lyrics, or other such "keynote" qualities that usually attract a person's mind when listening to music aren't there, either. In the end, despite the fact that many of the tracks are exquisite little gems, the album is...rather dull.
As I've been writing this, nineteen tracks have played, spanning the tracks marked "Ghosts III" and "Ghosts IV", and I did not notice any sort of transition whatsoever. In fact, I don't even remember what I've just heard. It all just sailed along in the background like...like a ghost—are barely-felt chill brushing across my neck, flowing in one ear and out the other while barely twanging a neuron anywhere in between. None of the four "Ghosts" movements have any unique character to them: "Ghosts I" is mostly ambient, but has some gritty moments as well that just don't fit; "Ghosts IV" sounds like a bunch of vocal-less NIN outtakes, but doesn't have any cohesive sonic, instrumental, melodic, or sample-based unity.
I could imagine a number of these songs with vocals. Then they would no doubt prove very interesting! But lacking any sort of real connection to one another, the album sounds like a slowly-building collection of unfinished tracks from Year Zero or pieces assembled from throw-away basslines, beats, and piano tracks that should've been openers to real songs, bridges in real songs, and codas to real songs.
Simply put, as a collection of instrumentals, this is a rather dull collection. If you listen to the individual tracks sparingly, then you'll be able to appreciate them a little better...but as a seamless whole? They blur together into a hazy gray line between dark and bright. In other words, they turn into the audial equivalent of the album cover.
I couldn't imagine Trent following up Year Zero with another masterpiece, but he's trying something totally different with Ghosts I-IV, and I really appreciate that. I also appreciate his gusto to explore the distribution possibilities of the Internet, and I highly applaud him for licensing Ghosts under Creative Commons. Something tells me you'll find a Ghost or two slipping through the backgrounds of a couple Nyarlathotep tracks soon. :) Unfortunately, the music as a whole is just a little too instrumental—it becomes a nigh-featureless wash of sound with nary a surprising crackle or a sample or any kind of major tempo change or...hell, anything to really engage the listener.
That said, it is a very good album to fall asleep to!
