What's New(s)?

Listen to a piece of Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross' Gone Girl score now

Trent Reznor has had a more than fruitful collaboration with musical-pal Atticus Ross and director David Fincher, winning an Academy Award for 2010's The Social Network and capturing a Grammy for 2011's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That mutually beneficial partnership continues with the score for the Fincher-directed Gone Girl, which Reznor and Ross premiered in part today on the website FindAmazingAmy. The site for the film adaptation of Gillian Flynn's best-selling thriller is designed to resemble local-news coverage of the novel's main-case with clips from the film  and the Reznor/Ross score interspersed throughout.

In addition to the site, the film's first official trailer is now out which can be seen below. In the clip, lead Ben Affleck can be seen arguing with his missing-wife played by Rosamund Pike as Psychedelic Furs' frontman Richard Butler's tender cover of "She" slowly unwinds. It's absolutely gorgeous and fully goes against the grain of the trailer's grim tone.

Gone Girl is out in theaters October 3.

 

G-Side debut new single "Statue"

Huntsville, Alabama's own G-Side make workmanship seem colossally heroic. From 2007 to 2011 they released five albums of increasingly great music, culminating with the dark vibrancy of 2011's iSLAND. That dark-vibrancy wasn't just an artistic creation and in September of 2012 the duo of ST 2 Lettaz and Yung Clova parted ways.

In the time since the split, Lettaz and Clova have mended fences and now they're prepping for Gz to Godz, their 6th official release. To hype the LP, they've debuted the booming "Statue" which has all of the stomp you'd expect from the first single for an album. Produced by frequent-collaborators Block Beattaz, "Statue" mutates from calm horn-laden grinding to an almost gothic, Lex Luger-indebted churn without any growing pains. If they hometown ever does get around to building a statute of the duo, efforts like "Statue" will be the reason why.

Gz to Godz is still without a release date, but you can find "Statue" now through Audio Mack. 




TV's Andy Daly "directs" the video for Real Estate's "Crime

I am an unabashed fan of TV's Andy Daly. From his constant guest-work on show's ranging like The Office, Modern Family, and Eastbound & Down to his generally manic output on the stellar Comedy Bang Bang podcast, there are few (if any) comedic efforts Daly has done that I haven't sought out. He blends blind-confidence and barely togetherness in his characters that you know from the outset is going to end miserably, but you laugh anyway.

That disastrous line-towing is on full-display in the Funny or Die music video for Real Estate's loping "Crime" single, directed by WFMU's Tom Scharpling. In the video, Daly portrays a sad-sack version of Scharpling who is directing the effort because of "money trouble" he's currently experiencing. So to make an extra profit, the "auteur" Scharpling auctions off the "Crime" clip to 24-year-old Jared Frenkel's Blood Lords (about a gang of undead X-Gamers), an Iowa City ceramicist named Valerie Anderson, and senior-citizen Fred Dombrowski Sr. who just wants to see a "tribute to yesteryear." And if the revenue-stream weren't wide enough, Scharpling hooks a Thai restaurant and the Westboro Baptist Church. And though Scharpling rakes in the big bucks at the end, nothing quite goes according to plan.

You can watch the video now through Funny or Die.

(Check back tomorrow for more of the newest in new(s) and follow AllFreshSounds on Twitter for updates throughout the day.)

In Revue- "Hesitation Marks"

A line like “everything I say has come before” in jittery faux dance track “Copy of A” off Hesitation Marks, Nine Inch Nails’ first offering in 5 years possesses particular relevance circa 2013. In his review for Stereogum, Tom Breihan posited Kanye West’s oppressive Yeezus may be the best Nine Inch Nails record of 2013. “Yeezus has that old urgency, the need factor,” he wrote in his column. 20-plus years into his career, Trent Reznor isn’t infected by the same desperation that defined Pretty Hate Machine or Downward Spiral. Often those albums defining numbers were in-the-red screamers where Reznor seethed with contempt for anything and everything. Much of Hesitation Marks turns the heat on the towering inferno down, until only a flickering blue pilot light is left.      

A small burning ember is an adept metaphor for Hesitation Marks, because Reznor is often at his best here when he’s giving his “least”. Paradoxically the course of skeletal “Find My Way” is plotted over skittish drum sequencing. Reznor strips his cavernous mine of all but the essentials. A regretful whisper hovers above a haunted piano line crawling up from the abyss. He dabbles in the “Children’s Prayer”, though it smacks of an individual willing to try anything once to find a solution.  While quizzical and propulsive “Disappointed” finds time for post-rock guitar climbing, Reznor remains firmly grounded by a no muss no fuss clap track. He looks skyward solely to question Superman’s motives as he flies overhead; warning him “nothing is ever going to change.”

Reznor remains “one-step ahead” on twittering “Satellite”, though xx guitar runs are hiding in the jungle groove’s thickets. 2013 has become the year of satellites and surveillance, and listening to a Nine Inch Nails album is akin to listening to a slowly collapsing conversation, so why not cross the two wires together? Reznor can’t shed a straightjacket in “Various Methods of Escape”. Crestfallen he wonders aloud “why’d you have to make this so hard?” Losing yourself in another person can be a frightening experience and Reznor is screaming from behind claustrophobic maze walls.

Lyrically Hesitation Marks myopically focuses on fleeing. The pulsating “Running” scans for hiding spots and comes up empty-handed; leaving Reznor to resign “I’ll never get away.” Penultimate track “While I’m Still Here” sees time sprinting away, each lap brings Reznor one step closer to the end. Even “Copy of A” concerns Reznor’s attempts to “catch up with myself.” The race Reznor is really running is to reclaim the throne. Desolate industrial nihilism tempered by dance-pop sensibilities is no-longer a non-starter and Reznor’s empire is being encroached upon.

Reznor’s “problem” is comparable to the challenge My Bloody Valentine masterfully confronted in m b v. The void their near two-decade absence left was filled in by worthy successors spanning Sigur Ros to Beach House and Deerhunter. Addressing this, I wrote: “MBV attempting to begin again in a landscape it invented is virtually unprecedented, but restless innovators like Kevin Shields have rarely been concerned with precedence.” The descriptor “restless” can be readily appended to Reznor and Hesitation Marks’ weakest moments are when he settles down into familiar habits.  

“All Time Low”s two-step thud and funk strut faintly recalls the insecure carnal feast of “Closer”, but defanged by an impish Wurlitzer. Both are rabid dogs fighting to stay alive; “Closer” is just more feral. “Everything” tries to outpace Hesitation Marks lurching crestfallen numbers, only to disappear into a pack of early 2000s emo imitators.  “Come Back Haunted”s drum hits and low-end bass burbles teases a militant chorus that never quite finds its rallying cry. Reznor says goodbye during the track, if he could just put the past in the rearview altogether.   

Previously mentioned “Disappointed” asks “what did you expect?” and this far into Reznor’s career as NIN it’s a fair question to ask. Can we expect Reznor to die rather than relinquish control? Is Reznor still willing to hold on to what he wants to believe? Hesitation Marks never clears the high-bar because of reluctance to answer these questions. Finishing instrumental “Black Noise” flees before any conflict is resolved. Downward Spiral was an unrelenting bullet to the brain; here Reznor has a jittery finger teasing the trigger as the screen fades to black.

 "Disappointed"

What's New(s)?

Nine Inch Nails debut new song

Tracks from the forthcoming Nine Inch Nails album Hesitation Marks have been steadily flowing forth for the last several months and now we have another one. "Find My Way" originally appeared during last month's comeback set at the Fuji Rock Festival. The studio track is a low-key affair, Reznor singing in a hushed whisper over a skittish drum beat. Check out the audio rip here (from the Zane Lowe show) and look for the LP to drop September 3.



Pharrell and Ray Lewis link up

 

If Ray Lewis speeches didn't already have enough replayability, we now have a new reason to put Ray on repeat. Taking a cue from a 2012 fan-made video, Lewis and Neptunes producer Pharrell have linked up for a "mixtape" of the former Raven's linebacker's diatribes. The release entitled Natural Born Hitters takes blustery Pharrell beats and blends them with Lewis musings on: training, practice, and pre-game. Whenever you find yourself needing a extra boost of inspiration or just want to hear Ray Lewis yelling for a few minutes, you now have a new outlet. 

Listen here



Drake shares album artwork

Drake's forthcoming release Nothing Was The Same is just a month away from release and although there's still no tracklist, we finally have album art. The two animated covers for the Toronto MC's third LP were created by Kadir Nelson, who previously designed the collage cover for the posthumous 2010 Michael. Marc Hogan of Spin referred to the sunny cover as "laughable" and outright declared "Drake has to know this is funny." But in an interview with MTV news, Nelson describes Drake's desire for something "iconic". Time will tell if the cover makes its way to that Pantheon or winds up in the halls of Pitchfork's "Worst Album Covers". So until that argument is settled, enjoy the still great video for "Started From The Bottom" and check out Nothing Was The Same, in stores September 24.

 Look for more of the newest in new(s) Monday.