2008-03-09
2007 was a busy year for Mr. Reznor. He kept busy working on the release of NIN's Year Zero alongside Saul Williams's Niggy Tardust album. Seconds before year's end, he releases the album that closes his relations with Interscope records - A remix version to his newly acclaimed masterpiece, "Year zero".
The remix album is Reznor's interesting attempt to give his own music new interpretations. He does that in two levels. The first one is his choice of participating artists on the album, and second level is throughout the second CD coming with the Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D, which contains all original album tracks for fans to play, mix, distort and abuse. And after they're done playing with it, they can upload their experiments onto a special website sponsored by the band.
Apart from Saul Williams, the rest of the guest list is quite surprising. Most of them are already familiar from the more experimental music genre, though some are new to this phrase. There's Fennesz, who's familiar for his brilliant soundscapes and work with Mike Patton (is there a definition that suits him?). The electro group Ladytron. And for me, the most interesting attempt on the album, The Kornos Quartet and Enrique Gonzales Müller, probably familiar from the "Requiem for a dream" and "The Fountain" soundtracks.
There's no doubt that it's a big honor to be included in the list of artists Trent Reznor trusts with his music, and if you're asked into this project it seems like an easy choice to make. Though accepting this offer, is to step right into the lion's den and hope to survive.
The musical space that Reznor leaves for mistakes in his music is almost non – existing, if it exists at all. From that point of view, you can understand that messing with NIN' music leaves very little place to maneuver, it will be either really great, or really bad. Messing with those tracks is about as complicated as an open brain surgery. Yes, that's how much I appreciate Trent Reznor as an artist.
On the front line, Saul Williams opens the album with his version of "Hyperpower!" rightfully called "Gunshots by computer". Williams is perfectly suiting to dub "Hyperpower" with his vocals; His lyrics, are just as fierce, hard, and sharp as the noise Reznor incomes into this apocalyptic track. The marching sounds, the howling crowds on the background, screaming, protesting - they all blend perfectly with Saul's machine gun vocals.
The following track is an interesting version to "The Great Destroyer". Disarming it from its original aggression and rearming it with Modewheelmood'S new one.
Stephan Goodchild & Doudou N'Daiye Rose also present a great effort with the tribal version for "The Warning".
Adding to the A-list is The Kornos Quartet's psychotic version for "Another Version Of The Truth"; Building it up with spine chilling violins, distorting and paralyzing at the same time. The atmosphere that Fennesz builds so well for "In This Twilight" is something that I can't exactly describe as what this track really needed, but it sure doesn't do wrong with it. For the closing track, the guys from New Order (Stephan Morris and Gillian Gilbert) land the project easily and slowly with their own "Zero-Sum".
Taking on the challenge of understanding where you stand inside the already perfectly written NIN's music, is a hard journey to go through. The fact that not every artist manages to succeed throughout this journey makes this album a bit unfocused and unstable. Some of the tracks give new life to the original versions of the songs, others just fall short.
There's no doubt that the A&R for the album tried to balance between the different quality tracks, making it as natural as possible. The album opening and closing tracks are great, interesting and enjoyable. It's the middle section, that's where it's a bit loose and not entirely coherent.
The work on NIN tracks is made for adults only. Only bands that are sure of their identity in over a 100% can deal successfully with this material. But like most human beings, most of us are not as confident and self-assure as we present ourselves. Its tests like this one that prove us for what we really are.
Roy Povarchik
