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 available as a physical product in CD and vinyl formats. The 6 panel digipak will be limited to 250,000 pieces worldwide, each individually numbered, and will include a DVD of NIN performing five live tracks from The Slip at rehearsals, a 24-page booklet, and an exclusive sticker pack. The CD is to be released July 22, 2008 in the US and Canada, and released July 21, 2008 in the UK and Europe.

Originally, the physical product was intended to be released on July 22, 2008 in the US, Canada, and Japan as a numbered, CD/DVD package, limited to 250,000 units with the UK, Europe, and Australian unnumbered editions to be released on July 21, 2008, with the same content as the North American and Japanese editions. It is not known at this time why the decision was made for the numbers produced to be reduced.

The double gatefold vinyl release contains one 180-gram LP and a 24-page booklet. Unlike the CD release, the vinyl is not numbered. It will be released in the US and Canada on august 5th, 2008, and in the UK and Europe on August 4th, 2008.

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

"999,999" - 1:25
"1,000,000" - 3:56
"Letting You" - 3:49
"Discipline" - 4:19
"Echoplex" - 4:45
"Head Down" - 4:55
"Lights In The Sky" - 3:29
"Corona Radiata" - 7:33
"The Four Of Us Are Dying" - 4:37
"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

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.

In a nin.com update on June 26th, 2008, it was reported that since the album's release on May 5th, 2008, over 1,400,000 people had downloaded The Slip from theslip.nin.com. That number represents individual people, and excludes multiple downloads from the same order.

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.

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!"