kristen999

I should be answering comments on Distant Shores (I appreciate them all so much!), but I got lost listening to music because of my mental head space today. I promise I'll answer them tomorrow :D In the meantime......

Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters talks about Trent in the Hollywood Reporter:

To me, working with him in the studio was such a great experience because his understanding and knowledge of recording music is so deep. He can do everyone else's job better than they can, so you have to be good. And that pushes you to be great. Rhythmically, he works in very sophisticated patterns, without confusing the song. That's an art. Most drummers can't even do that. His sense of arrangement and composition ranges from beautiful linear structure to abstract. And the effect is always the same: he makes incredibly moving music.

I think it's safe to say that he is my generation's most talented musician-producer-songwriter. When he won the Academy Award, I was not only happy for him, but I was also happy that someone from my musical generation was being recognized not just as a rock musician, but as a brilliant composer. As an artist. It was well-deserved.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/dave-grohl-trent-reznor-dragon-tattoo


From TIME Magazine regarding Trent Reznor's score to "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo tells a story of secrets coming to the forefront after years of being kept in the dark. The combination of disturbing truths and lost innocence is orchestrated brilliantly in the score. Reznor and Ross use chimes that sound as though they’re coming at the listener directly from a child’s music box, only to be underscored with foreboding synthesizers. “While Waiting” and “Millenia” even feature angelic voices, before the menace creeps in during their conclusions. “The Seconds Drag” incorporates a ticking clock throughout, with that aforementioned chime and light tap layering over it from moment to moment.

The score isn’t solely for fans of slow tempos, though. Oftentimes, the music revs up in a jarring fashion, a tactic Reznor has used to great effect in other works. “A Thousand Details” begins with piano, before upbeat rhythms and distortion overtake it completely. “Oraculum” is a flurry of electronic drumbeats that builds and builds until dying out in the end. Beeps and bleeps are accompanied by slashing guitar noise and synths in “Infiltrator.” It isn’t hard to picture the movie’s heroes finding out the truth or taking action to any of these selections, and it is here Reznor and Ross find much success. The music paints the picture perfectly.


Read more: http://entertainment.time.com/2011/12/13/trent-reznors-the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo-more-than-just-a-soundtrack/#ixzz1gZOet9WZ

This is just an amazing live intro to a song. It's the perfect way to ratchet up the tension and then it just 'pops' into this masterful explosion of energy.

Awe inspiring. Watch and just ...guh.......

I normally just post the links, but wanted people to really give this review a read.

http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review_15363

4.5
superb by Porter W. Richards CONTRIBUTOR (20 Reviews)

On March 2nd, a simple message on the blog read "2 hours." Wasting no time, in two hours, a new website design was up with a download link. Despite the online server meltdown, Trent kept to his word and offered the album online in a variety of downloadable ways (one offering the first Ghosts edition for free), and one offering a $10 double-disk digipak shipped on April 8th. The album's release was so well planned and it's tactic of catching people off-guard may very well be the best planned album release in near history.

The best part is that this is a 36-track instrumental album that nobody expected. Maybe its too early, or the shock factor is still there, but Ghosts is truly amazing. Trent has compiled a wide variety of unorthodox instruments, electronic tools, distorted guitars, lush soundscapes, and eerie sounds into this collection of Explosions in the Sky influenced Nine Inch Nails. On the online booklet, a picture is shown of one of the guys, during recording, rubbing aluminum foil on strings. That is what you can expect from the album-unorthodox sounds coming from unorthodox instruments and playing styles. You can still distinctly hear the Nails sound throughout the album, but the wide variety of instruments, the soundscapes, and the unusual guitar riffs make a strange post-rock influenced ambience.

The initial response when I realized that Ghosts was a massive 36-track instrumental package was immediate excitement, but it then faded away. I imagined a boring album with 36 low-key instrumental tracks. But when I actually got Ghosts the feelings of being let-down left my body. The melancholic opening piano track sets such a dull, depressing feeling inside of you, and the same goes for the second track. But just as you begin to think this isn’t quite Nine Inch Nails, this is more Sigur Ros than NIN, you quickly discover you’re wrong. Very, very wrong. Because when you think you've figured out this is a piano-led album, songs like 3 (which is a lot like The Becoming) show up, or track 19 which wouldn't be out of place on a Skinny Puppy album, with all of it's heavy industrial beats. Basically, if you expected Ghosts to lull you with pianos, almost something in the vein of Still, you are quite wrong. Some of the stuff is heavy, loud, and aggressive, if not some of the loudest Nails music; 31 is like Hyperpower!’s aborted brother. Newcomer Brian Vigilone lays down a cymbal-heavy drum pattern and distorted guitars overpower the mix into a headbanger. And just as it gets loud, it ends abruptly.

The album has no issue with flow, either. Despite being 36 tracks that span a wide variety of genres and phases in NIN’s career, the songs seep into one another, and the four Ghosts editions have four distinctive feels. Ghosts I has a melancholic edge, seemingly painting the picture for a cold, rainy day. Ghosts II has an upbeat, foreign edge that reminds me a lot of The Fragile, and Ghosts III comes off as an industrial powerhouse. Ghosts IV is electronic, funky, and danceable. The tracks are all distinctive, original, and grandly epic. You can’t confuse a track with another, they all stand-out. Some of the tracks are clear throwbacks to various areas in Nine Inch Nails’ career, while some offer new sounds and vibrations. However, Ghosts IV definitely the stand-out. It’s like a more fun, less repetitive, and danceable Year Zero. So it’s not like the album is droningly monotone with no separate areas and sounds, each Ghosts volume presents a new sound and aura to the mix. But what’s the best, most surprising about the album is how atmospheric it is. Every track creates a new sound, a new feeling you get lost in. The tracks won’t lull you to sleep, but they send you to another place, another place Trent Reznor and co. have perfectly handcrafted. But what else stands out on the album is the fact that Trent doesn't seem to be catering to the teenagers and what's popular anymore. The last two NIN albums seemed to be what the public wanted, not what Reznor wanted. At age 42, it was time for Trent to stop catering to what the public wants and to start making what he wants to make; no more overused angst, screaming, and profanity. This is proof that Trent Reznor has finally grown out of the teenage angst.

But it wasn’t pure shock factor and surprise that runs this album. The originality, inventiveness, variety, and the emotional soundscapes could have carried this album without the marketing scheme. It’s so dreamy, and atmospheric that you can’t not enjoy it, no matter what type of music you listen to. It doesn’t bore at all, it keeps you interested and going, for two hours straight. As I sat outside in the cold, pelting freezing rain this morning, the sky was bleak and dull, I had Ghosts playing in my ears, and thought to myself "this is how Trent Reznor meant this album to be listened to." Complete creativity and inventiveness at its core, Ghosts I-IV proves that Trent Reznor is one of the most vital artists in music today.


Link to the piratebay version or go to amazon and give him your $5.

http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4059158/Nine_Inch_Nails_-_Ghosts_I_(2008)