The Slip

Halo 27: The Slip

The Slip (also known as Halo 27) is the eighth and latest studio album from Nine Inch Nails. It was released as a free download on May 5, 2008, and contains the previously released Web-only singles "Discipline" and "Echoplex."

The album is available for download in a variety of formats, including MP3, lossless FLAC and high-quality WAV files. When playing the MP3 files in an MP3 player a different piece of artwork is displayed for each song, as was the case with Ghosts I–IV.

Potential Year Zero Concept

Although not officially stated, the concept seems to show certain events which happen to the main characters in the year zero universe. Below are some potential meanings to certain songs:

1,000,000

This song could be about a person who has been lead to believe something and realised it was all just a lie, so he has become over eccentric with the idea and decided he no longer wants to believe anything, he feels more alive now he is no longer restrained, at the same time he feels like he has to destroy himself because he has no meaning.

Letting You

How the fictional government are controlling its people but the people are to afraid to do anything about it. Another part of the song shows how the soldiers they are training believe they are fighting for liberty but they only seem to be fighting for the same lost cause as their leaders.

Discipline

This song resembles one specific person who seems to believe he is doing something wrong, or is being told he is doing wrong, so he should be disciplined. This could also resemble certain torture techniques the government use on prisoners (much like in the movies), which in turn, forces them to think they are doing something wrong when in fact they aren't.

Echoplex

This song is from the eyes of someone who is being held captive, how he is going crazy and is starting to believe he can see everything, most likely because of a lack of the fictional parepin which helps repress feelings of control. It also seems like he is slowly being forgotten about and nobody is going to rescue him from his cage.

Head Down

This song resembles somebody talking to themselves, trying not to get caught for something they have done wrong, with feelings of people watching him at all times, waiting for him to slip up.

Lights In The Sky

This seems to show a couple, which are more than likely a part of the resistance. One of them (Most Likely The Male) may have had a chance to escape the carnage the government is creating, but wont leave the other due to feelings for eachother.

Corona Radiata

This album is a little bit more curious, as the corona radiata are several protective layers surrounding ova or unfertilized egg cells, responsible with supplying the ova or egg cell with protein. This could mean the couple from lights in the sky are expecting or dont know the female is pregnant, possibly with the demon seed, as the red line in the image is connected to the artwork for demon seed. the song also begins with a more muffled sound much like you are listening from the inside of the womb, and gradually gets clearer and clearer.

The Four Of Us Are Dying

This songs artwork is not directly linked to the demon seed, much like lights in the sky, this means they are not being affected by the seed for the reason shown below. It could also show the main characters of the plotline dying out, ushering in the new era and the demon seed.

Demon Seed

This could be from the point of view of the child the girl is bearing only older, perhaps an orphan wants to find out more about their parents, only to find they were killed as part of a government resistance, this child would then decide to carry on what there parents started and take down the government, creating a new resistance. This is the theory on how the artwork for demon seed is connected to everything on the album apart from the potential resistance members, it never knew its family, yet it is able to change the course of everything else which is happening in the universe around it.

These are only speculative theories and have not been officially stated.

Formats

Downloads

• High-quality MP3s (87 mb), encoded with LAME at V0, fully tagged.
• FLAC lossless (259 mb)
• M4A Apple Lossless (263 mb)
• High definition WAVE 24/96 (1.2 gb), better-than-CD-quality 24bit 96kHz audio

The FLAC, M4A and WAVE formats are distributed via torrents through tracker.nin.com. All formats include a PDF file with artwork and credits, all songs include individual track art and lyrics embedded. All files are 100% DRM-free.

Physical product

While the album is not currently available to purchase in physical form and there is no option to purchase deluxe editions as with Ghosts I-IV, physical CD and vinyl editions are planned for release in July, with more information coming soon.

Track Listing

1. "999,999" - 1:25
2. "1,000,000" - 3:56
3. "Letting You" - 3:49
4. "Discipline" - 4:19
5. "Echoplex" - 4:45
6. "Head Down" - 4:55
7. "Lights In The Sky" - 3:29
8. "Corona Radiata" - 7:33
9. "The Four Of Us Are Dying" - 4:37
10. "Demon Seed" - 4:59

Full length: 43:45

Album Credits

• Written by Trent Reznor
• Performed by Trent Reznor, Josh Freese, Robin Finck and Alessandro Cortini
• Produced by Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Alan Moulder
• Mixed by Alan Moulder
• Programmed by Atticus Ross
• Engineered by Michael Tuller, Atticus Ross and Alan Moulder
• Mastered by Brian Gardner at Bernie Grundman Mastering, Hollywood, California

• Room tuning: Steve “Coco” Brandon
• Art direction: Rob Sheridan and Trent Reznor
• Cover styling: Amy Hall
• Hair: Cori Bardo

• Project coordination: Brett Bachemin
• Assistance: Alynn Dotson
• Management: Rebel Waltz
• Business management: William Harper and Michael Walsh for Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman
• Legal: Gary Stiffelman and David Byrnes
• World wide booking: Marc Geiger for William Morris Agency
• Press [us]: Steve Martin (Nasty Little Man)
• Press [uk]: Frances McCahon (RMP)

• The Null Corporation Europe: Didi Parlevliet
• Published by: Form And Texture (ASCAP)
• Label: The Null Corporation

© 2008 NIN

• Thank you: Bob Morelli, Alan Becker, Danny Buch and everyone at Red; Digidesign; Elena Dickstein and Preferred Travel; Jeffrey Ehrenberg and Vintage King; Jeffrey Jorton and Native Instruments; Paul J. Cox Studio Systems; Phillip Scholes and SSL; Rockit Cargo; Roger Cordell and Big City Music; Ross Garfield and Drum Doctors; Shawn Cleary and Analogue Haven; Shivaun O’Brien and Sound City Studios; Sudjam; Topspin Media Inc.; West L.A. Music

• Thank you (continued): Bruno Bondanelli, Candy Soo, Chris Whitemyer, Christina Lum, Craig Johnson, David Phillips, Irina Volodarsky, Jeff Davis, Jeff Masud, Jessica Trento, John Coleman, Josh Smith, June Munsinger, Karen Ciccone, Kelly Jao, Marie Lewis, Rich Fownes, Ross Rosen, Shamal Ranasinghe, Sherri Durrell, Tamar Levine, Zia Modabber

This album is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.

More information: www.creativecommons.org

Release

Prior to the album's release, a message was posted on nin.com, simply stating "2 weeks!". The previous time the same message had been posted on the site had been to forbear the release of Ghosts I-IV. Two tracks, "Discipline" and "Echoplex", were also released through radio and the internet respectively, both containing the message "go to www.nin.com May 5" in their ID3 tags.

On May 5th, nin.com was updated with the title Halo 27 and a link to theslip.nin.com with the message:

"(thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years - this one’s on me)"

The album site requires a password to be submitted where the link to the download page can be sent to. The site itself states:

"as a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com."

"we encourage you to remix it, share it with your friends, post it on your blog, play it on your podcast, give it to strangers, etc." 

Multitracks for the songs were then posted for download from remix.nin.com

Miscellanea

The high quality wave download torrent includes a subdirectory named "The Slip art", containing JPEG images. However, the file "02-1000000.jpg", has an incorrect file extension. This is actually an Adobe Photoshop CS3 (Macintosh version) file with a single layer and no significant meta information attached.

There also seems to be a mistake in the wave files; The track "The Four Of Us Are Dying" is mistitled "Demon Seed" and vice versa.

External Links

• theslip.nin.com
• Streaming audio at iLike