Not The Actual Events
Not The Actual Events (also known as Halo 29) is the second proper EP from Nine Inch Nails. It was released digitally on December 23, 2016, though pre-orders through nin.com allowed for a download one day early. This EP acts as the first installment of a trilogy, preceding the 2017 release of Add Violence and the 2018 release of Bad Witch. This is the first release to include Atticus Ross as an official member of NIN.
Track List
- "Branches/Bones" – 1:46
- "Dear World," – 4:06
- "She's Gone Away" – 6:00
- "The Idea Of You" – 3:27
- "Burning Bright (Field On Fire)" – 5:50
Formats
In addition to a wide digital release, the EP was offered through nin.com in two other formats. One was a single-sided vinyl, and the other was a digital + "physical component for you to deal with" version. The physical component includes thick card stock papers containing song lyrics, various images and soot that will cover your hands upon opening. Many different unique variants have been reported. The EP was released on CD on November 17, 2017.
The warning sticker on the physical component's outer packaging reads:
To be read IN ITS ENTIRETY before opening. Actions have consequences! N.T.A.E. may contain subversive elements that produce feelings of euphoria and may be harmful and unsettling to the consumer. Likewise, this physical package may lead to unrealized expectations or unexpected results upon opening. Caution should be exercised with both. AND THIS IS IMPORTANT... This will make a mess. By opening this envelope in any way, you assume all risks to your person and/or property, and waive any claim against The Null Corporation, any of its subsidiaries or affiliated entities from any and all damages or harm you may incur.
Side B of the vinyl version features 3 additional, unlisted tracks from The Downward Spiral in reverse: "Hurt", "The Downward Spiral" and "Reptile". The vinyl also had a small amount of the black dust in its package, with smudges and fingerprints already on the sleeve and the record. There are also two variants of the lyric sheet, with one in blue and one in red.
"Schizophreniasdiary"
A Wordpress website was discovered, seemingly originating from 2011, which shares lines and lyrical themes from the EP/LP trilogy; most notably the line "cocksucking chicken wing," which can be found amongst the extra, layered lyrics of "Branches/Bones" printed on the physical vinyl version release. It remains unclear how the two are connected, though it is generally agreed that the correlations are far too vast to be deemed coincidental.
About
The EP was first acknowledged by Trent Reznor on December 17, 2016 in a post on nin.com:
"It's an unfriendly, fairly impenetrable record that we needed to make. It's an EP because that ended up being the proper length to tell that story".
In June 2017, it was announced that Not The Actual Events is the first in a trilogy of related EPs to be released 6-8 months apart. The second EP, Add Violence, was announced the following month. The third release, the now album-length Bad Witch, was announced in May 2018.
The official nin.com website description states:
"PART ONE OF A THREE EP TRILOGY OF RECORDS. UNAPOLOGETIC, UNFRIENDLY, DENSE, LYRICALLY COMPLEX, SO-FAR-BEHIND-THE-TIMES-IT’S-AHEAD-OF-ITS-TIME, HIPSTER-REPELLING UNCOMPROMISING MUSIC SMART PEOPLE CAN FUCK TO. IT MAY NOT BE FOR YOU."
In an interview with Lizzy Goodman posted on nin.com, Reznor explains the trilogy’s concept in detail:
"But to be clear, the record isn’t about Trump, it’s about making sense of the world. The first record, Not the Actual Events, was more of an internal fantasy of what if I lit a match to my life and just embraced burning the whole fucking thing down. You know? All of this is an illusion and I really should be dead or lying in a ditch somewhere. Who I really am is an addict that self-destructs. That’s my true nature and this is an illusion and some borrowed time. It wasn’t a pleasant thing, but it felt like, that’s a story to tell. And if felt like something I needed to internally process.
And that supported other things that were interesting to us like aggressive music and a sense of the self-referential, looking back at other albums and pilfering bits of the art design to confuse people and also because I was thinking about those records. To try picking up a guitar, which I told myself I would never do again for whatever reason and finding, you know what? It sounds fucking good. Listening back and going, you know what? That was a good song from 25 years ago, it’s not bad to play something like that. There are no rules. That was the first record.
It wasn’t fully mapped out but it was meant to feel like if we broke up one big record – if it was Downward Spiral, which has acts, if we do an album like that, but release one act at a time, it will be more immediate and the level of adrenaline and momentum will be higher. And maybe it will be consumed in a way that feels more digestible to an outside world that doesn’t have long attention spans anymore.
With the second one, Add Violence, the idea was, loosely, to zoom out, to be more global and to imply that maybe we’re all in a simulated reality. And that might introduce the concept of meaninglessness but also provide a safe container to explain why everything feels off.
By the time we got to the third one, we had an idea in mind but it felt … rehearsed. Predictable. In the end, what felt true was to say that we as a society and as a species are probably an accident, a mutation. Really what we are is fucking animals. And the illusion was enlightenment. The more we’ve connected with each other the dumber we’ve gotten and the more we decide we want to kill each other. We’re not some elevated transcendent beings, we’re bacteria in a jar. I wanted the art direction of Bad Witch to feel like shadows on a cave wall and we’re trying to figure out what it is and really there’s no nice, clean, safe scientific explanation. We’re just an accident. String theory and quantum physics is a fucking trick. And we’re not going to suddenly elevate ourselves into transcendent beings. We’re kidding ourselves. I know this will be an unsatisfying conclusion for some people. It isn’t what they want. They want it to be full matrix virtual reality, and this is the opposite of that, this is dirt and a broken computer chip and everything you believe in is really just bullshit."
EP title
The EP's title, Not The Actual Events, is derived from the descrambled lyrics found within "Branches/Bones": Allowing myself to feel a sense of comfort in the past. Not the actual events but the way I choose to remember them and you.
Artwork
The cover artwork harks back to that of And All That Could Have Been and Still. There are seven known variants of the digital art, including the final version.
Alternate digital artwork #1 - Origin: Instagram
Alternate digital artwork #2 - Origin: Facebook
Alternate digital artwork #3 - Origin: Embedded in first 2016 digital files
Alternate digital artwork #4 - Origin: Apple Music
Alternate digital artwork #5 - Origin: Embedded in corrected early 2017 digital files
Alternate digital artwork #6 - Origin: hidden in nin.com website
Digital and physical component credits sheet
Credits
- Nine Inch Nails: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
- Mix: Alan Moulder and Atticus Ross
- Track 3 + Mariqueen Maandig
- Track 4 + Dave Grohl
- Track 5 + Dave Navarro
- Mastering: Tom Baker at Baker Mastering
- Engineering: Dustin Mosely, Jun Murakawa, Chris Richardson, Chris Holmes
- Art Direction: John Crawford
- Additional Design: Corey Holms
- Special Packaging: Jeff Anderson (Artist In Residence)
- Management: Silva Artist Management
All songs written by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
Published by Form And Texture (ASCAP)/Administered by Kobalt Songs Music Publishing
Published by Songs In The Key of Mink (BMI) Administered by Downtown DMP Songs (BMI)
External Links
- Not The Actual Events at nincatalog.com
- Not The Actual Events at nin.com
- Not The Actual Events at Amazon
- Not The Actual Events at eBay
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