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.

Formats

Downloads

• High-quality MP3s (87 mb), encoded with LAME at V0, fully tagged.
• FLAC lossless (259 mb)
• FLAC high definition 24/96 (942 mb), better-than-CD-quality 24bit 96kHz audio
• 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

The Slip will be released on July 22, 2008, in the US, Canada, and Japan as a numbered, CD/DVD package, limited to 250,000 units. The CD will contain the album itself while the DVD will contain live rehearsal footage of the band performing the songs. Also included will be a 24-page booklet and a pack of stickers. The UK, Europe, and Australian editions will be released on July 21, 2008, and will have the same content as the North American and Japanese editions.

On August 4, 2008, the album will be released in Europe, Australia, and the UK on 180-gram vinyl and will also feature a 24-page booklet.

Originally the physical product was intended to be released as 200,000 limited, numbered editions with all other copies of the album being unnumbered but otherwise the same. It is not known at this time why the decision was made for the numbers produced to be reduced.

Third Disc

On Amazon US, The Slip is described as having three discs. A user named as Ronaldo Jones posted under the discussion "Hidden Disc" that there is a third disc, a CD, with more studio tracks named "The Take Over". This is, however, just a rumour.

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 Johnston, 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

According to a Rolling Stone article, the album was finished May 4th and sent to Sudjam, the company that manages nin.com, at 9:30 p.m. for a midnight release.

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.

The final page of the PDF gives credit to "(c) 2008 niin." This appears to be a typographical error.

Audiophile message board Hydrogen Audio noticed mastering errors on the 24/96 high-def WAVs, which was followed by posters "ningineer" and "treznor" who wrote that they had recontacted the mastering studio and released the WAVs in addition to high-def FLACs.[1] On May 15th the nin.com Halo 27 blog post was edited with the message: "Some friends at hydrogenaudio pointed out an error with the high resolution WAVE files we didn't catch. The corrected files are now posted along with high resolution FLAC files as well. If you're interested in these, simply re-download the new files. Sorry for the hassle!"

External Links

• theslip.nin.com
• Streaming audio at iLike