Saul Williams

NIN: Survivalism live w/ Saul Williams, Atlanta 5.10.09

Saul Williams makes a surprise appearance on stage with Nine Inch Nails for a performance of Survivalism, live in Atlanta, GA, May 10th, 2009

There’s a lot of things that impressed me in this video, ranging from the performance, to the surprise visit from Saul Williams to the awesome array of electronic music gear.

Watch closely, though, and you’ll see that, despite the fact that the video looks fantastic – this is a basically a glorified home movie, one shot, filmed by Rob Sheridan with a Canon 5d Mark II.

Like a lot of things that NIN has been doing, it’s not immediately obvious how insanely innovative this is.

Put a guy on stage with a relatively cheap HD video cameo and let him interact with both the band and the audience, and you’ve changed concert videos forever. There’s no reason a band can’t have an HD concert video made for all their shows, now.

Let me know what you think of this video.

Meanwhile, I’m going back to watch it again and do some synth-spotting.

via ninofficial

Nine Inch Nails is offering its latest CD, Ghosts I, as a free download from its site. The collection is a teaser to promote their Ghosts I-IV, a new collection of instrumental tracks.The official download requires email registration at the site to get a download link. You can also download the collection officially via BitTorrent.

The download includes

• DRM-free MP3s, encoded with LAME at 320kbps
• A 40-page pdf book about the release
• A digital extras pack with wallpapers, icons, etc

The entire collection can be downloaded for $5, or you can order a $10 2 CD set and other deluxe and limited edition versions.

Here’s what NIN’s Trent Reznor has to say about the release:

This music arrived unexpectedly as the result of an experiment. The rules were as follows: 10 weeks, no clear agenda, no overthinking, everything driven by impulse. Whatever happens during that time gets released as… something.

The team: Atticus Ross, Alan Moulder and myself with some help from Alessandro Cortini, Adrian Belew and Brian Viglione. Rob Sheridan collaborated with Artist in Residence (A+R) to create the accompanying visual and physical aesthetic.

We began improvising and let the music decide the direction. Eyes were closed, hands played instruments and it began. Within a matter of days it became clear we were on to something, and a lot of material began appearing. What we thought could be a five song EP became much more. I invited some friends over to join in and we all enjoyed the process of collaborating on this.

The end result is a wildly varied body of music that we’re able to present to the world in ways the confines of a major record label would never have allowed – from a 100% DRM-free, high-quality download, to the most luxurious physical package we’ve ever created.

More volumes of Ghosts are likely to appear in the future.

- Trent Reznor, March 2, 2008

Reznor previously produced the debut CD by Saul Williams, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust, which was also made available as a free download.