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.

On July 16, 2008, Trent Reznor posted two images of the physical product on nin.com. The post was entitled "The Beginning and the End." The first image shows him holding two copies of the album, hiding his face behind them. The second image shows the backs of both CDs. The one in back reads 1/250,000 and the one in front reads 250,000/250,000.

The Limited Edition CD comes with 3 stickers included are 4" x 4" and depicts one of the 10 illustrations for the songs.

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.

When asked to verify the product info, Amazon.com customer service replied with the following: "I understand that it is listed as 2 disc, 6 panel digipak in other websites and it is listed as 3 discs on our website. The only information we can give you about a particular CD is what is displayed on the detail page for that particular music title."

No further clarification was given. It is possible that they are counting the sticker pack as a disc. At some point, Amazon US was updated to show 2 discs.

The images posted on nin.com on July 16, 2008 show the label on the album which reads "limted edition CD + DVD". It is difficult to make out the smaller print, but it doesn't appear to give any further clues to a 3rd disc.

Some copies of The Slip began to ship on July 21, 2008. The only discs included are the audio CD and the live rehearsal DVD.

11th Track

Amazon.com (US) shows the CD having 11 tracks in the track listed. The 11th track in entitled "Slip." This may be an error much like the apparent 3rd disc.

As with the mystery of the third disc, there seems to be no 11th track, just the 10 that come with the download.

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

DVD Track Listing

"1,000,000"
"Letting You"
"Discipline"
"Echoplex"
"Head Down"

Full Length: 21:17

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

Video Content:

nine inch nails live: Alessandro Cortini, Robin Finck, Josh Freese, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Trent Reznor

Produced by Michael Angelos
Directed and edited by Rob Sheridan

Letting You, Head Down, and Discipline mixed by Blumpy
1,000,000 and Echoplex mixed by Ken Andrews at Red Swan Studios

Production Manager: Mark Demarais
Director of Photography: Simon Thirlaway
Camera Operators: Simon Thirlaway, Rob Sheridan, Hilton Goring, Dan Bombell, Ethan McDonald

Mastered by Tom Baker at Precision Mastering, Hollywood, CA
DVD media services by Broadness, NYC.

[www.nin.com]

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.

Relation to Year Zero

Like Ghosts I-IV, the release of The Slip came as a surprise to most fans, who were expecting the next release to be a "Year Zero 2". Trent Reznor has indicated in interviews since the release that a Year Zero sequels was still in the works.

It remains unclear what portions, if any, of The Slip should be considered as canon in the Year Zero storyline. Aside from from Art Is Resistance logo in the artwork for "Letting You", there are no clear direct references characters or events in Year Zero. Many of tracks do share similar themes, such as abuse of power ("Letting You"), an avatar of destruction ("Demon Seed"), submission to authority ("Head Down"), imprisonment ("Echoplex") and the appearance of entities in the sky ("Lights In The Sky"). Other songs, however, like "1,000,000" and "Discipline", seem completely unrelated and feature more "traditional" NIN themes of personal turmoil.

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!"

A Google Earth KML file representing downloads of The Slip according to geographic region was made available from nin.com on June 26th, displaying over 1,400,000 downloads (not including multiple downloads) that had come from theslip.nin.com.