Not The Actual Events

[kargath]

Has anyone transferred the B side digitally yet to see if it's just older tracks backwards or if there's anything new/hidden?

[ophelia_]

My initial thought is that there has to be something more to the older tracks being on the B side... it's a bit too weird and random otherwise?

[snichols]

[Pbgut]

My initial thought is that there has to be something more to the older tracks being on the B side... it's a bit too weird and random otherwise?

Here's my crackpot shot at this: "Burning Bright" is a response song to "Hurt" ("I am stronger than I have ever been in my decline" – a much more fiery, sonically and verbally stronger sense of self-preservation than "if I could start again, a million miles away, I would keep myself, I would find a way"); "The Idea of You" matches up with "The Downward Spiral" (our boy always talked about how he sort of became the character he was writing about for awhile* – he turned into a really self-destructive person around the time of TDS after crafting a persona, based partially on himself – just go back to the Idea of You); and "She's Gone Away" obviously matches up with "Reptile."

Since we've already been given the solution for She's Gone Away = Reptile in the physical component (there's a fancier word for this that I forget – being given one solved part of a cryptogram or puzzle so you can solve the rest – if anyone can help me out with that), the rest follow in that order.

Also, because I am a joykill, this is one side of the original TDS vinyl in reverse, so it's probably just a coincidence. (I'm guessing, based on common sense, you'd have to make an entirely separate plate, but I am no engineer, so who knows.) But it works if you want it to!

Where's my prize, Trent?

* * *

I do remember reading, in the previous century, that Flood kind of distanced himself from Trent around the making of TDS due to such songs as the fabled "Just Do It" and "Big Man with a Gun" because he thought they were irresponsible. Given the semi-vulnerability to mental health issues/family dysfunction/outsider status of at least a sizable portion of NIN's fanbase, I can see where he was coming from. Starting with The Fragile, Trent seemed to correct course. Many of the emphasized words in the TF lyric booklet are about self-preservation in the face of adversity, and there is of course, "The Way Out Is Through," which is a much better, uh, solution? than what is offered on the title track of TDS. Trent himself is a survivor of some particularly unfortunate, if not rare, issues, and I'm assuming at least some of the die-hards here are as well, of varying degrees of severity.

In terms of Trent, I have always had trouble discerning how much of the TDS/TF era is a persona, and how much he was actually struggling. He was certainly always dangerously isolated, it seems, letting very few people in his personal life, and being raised as an only child. It seems like it did, in fact, get very bad, but he was so high-functioning that it's easy to dismiss, as a lot of critics seemed to do. But the lyrics here seem to suggest that he had some agency in this, that he threw himself into a situation of danger – for art? to reach an audience? – and that it wasn't really him. IDK.

[Ruined]

Since we've already been given the solution for She's Gone Away = Reptile in the physical component (there's a fancier word for this that I forget – being given one solved part of a cryptogram or puzzle so you can solve the rest – if anyone can help me out with that), the rest follow in that order.

A cipher?

[Pbgut]

A cipher?

A cipher is the code itself, AFAIK? The clue/hint has a more $2 word that I can't remember. Early dementia.

[eversonpoe]

https://www.reddit.com/r/nin/comment...idden_message/

so...what's the supposed hidden message? i'm just hearing the whole track in reverse.

[renton44]

so...what's the supposed hidden message? i'm just hearing the whole track in reverse.

I think the hidden message is "So, this is what caused the delay of everyone getting their vinyl, the first test pressing of TDS was in reverse.. but here is the evidence of what happened! Sorry kids!"

No idea really what it means, but kinda fun.

[quietime]

I think the NTAE Vinyl has something to do with thermographic ink. Someone on Reddit posted a pic of their vinyl and it has a red mark on the back. I'm thinking the combo of the black dust and the cover which the person describes as "it feels like uncoated nice construction paper" some how activated and caused the red to appear. https://www.reddit.com/r/nin/comment..._powder_on_it/

EDIT: Nevermind I saw pictures of the NTAE Vinyl on Discogs and they have same red mark. https://www.discogs.com/Nine-Inch-Na...mages/29818862

[Pbgut]

so...what's the supposed hidden message? i'm just hearing the whole track in reverse.

I usually don't analyze music too much in this way, because I like just getting lost in the music itself – but I think the idea of reversing the NTAE tracks themselves is way off. I think, in a general sense, this is the "reverse" of The Downward Spiral (similar to Hesitation Marks). Whether or not my idea about the tracks corresponding 1 to 1, backwards, with Reptile = She's Gone Away, The Downward Spiral = The Idea Of You, and Hurt = Burning Bright, is a stretch, I don't know – but this is the second correlation presented where She's Gone Away is supposed to match up to Reptile with the artwork/presentation of the album, so I don't think it's too far off.

Trent has seemed obsessed with this old idea – recently stated in the most recent Twin Peaks episode – about how "we are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream." He started to articulate it around the Bleedthrough/With Teeth era, but I think he always seemed interested in that. Did he "invent" his own self-destruction (not just the drugs, but also shedding his small town Pennsylvania self to become someone who lives in show business), or was that who he always was, and he just sort of discovered it through theatrics, and making his art?

[Pbgut]

Also – did I see someone on here or Reddit post an image of the NTAE physical component lined up in such a way that it spelled out a hidden phrase? I've searched but I could not find it. I may have hallucinated it. I have been spending way too much time in NINland.

[MSL]

is there still going to be a CD release of this EP?

[RiffTHF]

is there still going to be a CD release of this EP?

Amazon.ca list a cd and vinyl version coming September 1st
https://www.amazon.ca/Actual-Events-...+actual+events

[pinata89]

Not sure if it's been brought up before, but the final stanza to "Branches_Bones" I hear "Yes, I have been here before; and I don't care anymore; don't give a fuck anymore; feels like I've been here be---"

It's not reflected in the embedded lyrics to the mp3, but wondering if anyone else hears this too.

[Tommy_Macbeth]

I feel like the most succinct way to describe my interpretation of the two EP's is the apocalypse occurring within one's own mind: but extreme moments of confusion AND clarity occurring almost simultaneously, leading down different paths of anxiety, paranoia, realizations, power, and freedom/enslavement + awareness (wakefulness) and hypnosis.

[clarktrent]

Not sure if it's been brought up before, but the final stanza to "Branches_Bones" I hear "Yes, I have been here before; and I don't care anymore; don't give a fuck anymore; feels like I've been here be---"

I hadn't heard the very end of the sentence, I guess it gets kinda overpowered by "YEAH I DON'T CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARE"!!! Actually, I wonder if there are extra lyrics that aren't printed in the tags or the physical components... If I could find some hidden in the mix I'd-

[snichols]

video playing of the B side of the vinyl record.

[Pbgut]

I wonder if we'll get any multitracks to these EPs. I'd like to hear all the layers.

[march_of_the_pigs]

Have people found that the mixes on the vinyl are different to the downloads? Sounds like an extra SFX in the beginning 30 secs of track 1 for example.
Sorry if already covered, 115 pages is a lot to read through, (and figuring out the best phrases to search...)

[eversonpoe]

Have people found that the mixes on the vinyl are different to the downloads? Sounds like an extra SFX in the beginning 30 secs of track 1 for example.
Sorry if already covered, 115 pages is a lot to read through, (and figuring out the best phrases to search...)

i don't think anyone has mentioned that, but not that many of us have actually gotten our vinyl, yet. haha.

are you actually hearing extra sounds, or is it just that they're emphasized differently because of the format? there's a lot of noisy stuff happening in the background of branches/bones (and i say that about the digital version) at the beginning.

[ninlive]

Just to throw a random thought in here, the new EP packaging is awesome. Love that there is a little soot on it to mark up.

Overall, the new experience with the physical components to buy them to supplement the records has been fantastic. I'd do this for more bands.

[TerryG]

I recieved my record today and the inner sleeve is different than the one pictured on discogs. Mine has a red background with blue text and it's laid out differently.

Sorry if this has already been discussed.

[xolotl]

I recieved my record today and the inner sleeve is different than the one pictured on discogs. Mine has a red background with blue text and it's laid out differently.

Nice! Variations all around. Wonder if it's just the two this time... Perhaps I'll have to update my NTAE variant index with these.

It looks like discogs has pictures of your variant now, btw.

[Theodora]

Is this a place to discuss the vinyl or is there another thread?

[implanted_microchip]

Is this a place to discuss the vinyl or is there another thread?

I'd say anything NTAE-related can go here since the other vinyl thread was meant for reissues.

[Theodora]

Has anyone transferred the B side digitally yet to see if it's just older tracks backwards or if there's anything new/hidden?

Not digitally, my fiance has a turn table that plays in reverse....I just listened to it....PM me if you want to know what it is I don't know how to hide spoilers

[Theodora]

I recieved my record today and the inner sleeve is different than the one pictured on discogs. Mine has a red background with blue text and it's laid out differently.

Sorry if this has already been discussed.

So is mine

[miss k bee]

Final arrived today and the inner sleeve is blue text on red background

[ROFLRICK]

is there still going to be a CD release of this EP?

I have an order through Amazon US. Should be arriving next Friday!

[ROFLRICK]

Just how much of that dust is inside the record?