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
No comments:
Post a Comment