THE NIN HOTLINE

Thursday October 25, 2007

Saul Williams: The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust

**update: Seeing as I managed to spell Saul's last name wrong in my Digg headline, I put a new link up on Digg.

Trent Reznor just announced on nin.com that he is a man of his word. Long before Radiohead went the tip jar route, he said "If I could do what I want right now, I would put out my next album, you could download it from my site at as high a bit-rate as you want, pay $4 through PayPal." While he can't do that with his remix CD, he's passed the idea on to Saul Williams, whose latest album he produced. You can read the details at NiggyTardust.com, where the full tracklisting has been posted. You can download the album at 192kbps for absolutely nothing (cheaper than In Rainbows and higher bitrate to boot), and if you like what you hear, you can go back and show your support by paying $5 for a copy of the album at either 192kbps, 320kbps, or Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) -- i.e., pure lossless CD quality audio.

Anyway, some people in the press have been countering anti-label moves by Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, saying that smaller acts still need labels and can't pull this sort of thing off. Here is an excellent opportunity to prove that wrong. This is an amazing album by a guy who is, to quote Trent, 'not the household name (yet!) that Radiohead is.' Here's another chance to take another shot at the system, and get some fantastic music in the process. I've posted a Digg story about this, I'd love it if you could help spread the word to other news sites.

I've been given the chance to hear the album, and it's pretty fucking awesome, although I find it difficult to describe. Maybe I'll do up a little review later on. Do yourself a favor and come November 1st, download the free version and give it a few listens.