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Faceplams: "If not every song, almost every song" was composed in/with Maschine for Hesitation Marks.Originally Posted by Copy_of_an_Echo
Trent Reznor talks about Maschine/Hesitation Marks starting around 4:50
RA-MEN ROPPAI
"If not every song, almost every song" was composed in/with Maschine for Hesitation Marks.
Trent Reznor talks about Maschine/Hesitation Marks starting around 4:50
Last edited by Jon; 04-29-2015 at 10:39 PM. Reason: grammar
Stubby Member
Thank you for your quick reply, but I was actually wondering weather he used Maschine Studio, or one of the older versions of Maschine.
Whatchew facepalming for Eversonpoe!!!??? Trent doesn't specify which model of Maschine he used!!! I have a feeling it was the MKII because Maschine Studio was released very early in 2013...
Last edited by Copy_of_an_Echo; 04-30-2015 at 10:27 PM.
Josh Wink was on HLAH
Following a fairly long discussion:
La Mer: is it an instrumental? I say no because it has lyrics+vocals written and recorded solely for the song. A hell of a lot of people say yes.
Throbbing Member
I sort of consider it to be. I know it's weird. But it not being in english and not being in any way something you could sing along too -- it just feels like an instrumental. When I'm in the mood for an instrumental playlist, it's definitely on there. It can get hard for me to write when regular songs play because lyrics can be distracting, but that's not a problem with La Mer.
On the same topic, there are so many NINstrumentals with Trent's vocal ghost moans underneath the surface (or in the case of Ripe, very much at the forefront)... are those easier to classify as instrumentals than La Mer? It feels the same to me somehow.
Josh Wink was on HLAH
The language argument doesn't really work imo, I mean if Trent sang in Spanish it wouldn't become a non-song. I understand it's music heavy and vocal light but ... come on, you can hear her voice! And non-verbal noises are still instrumental to me, as are samples, but if something was written, recorded and performed vocally, with lyrics, for a piece, I'm not sure how it doesn't count.
Or maybe I'm obtuse.
Active Member
I think with La Mer the fact that the lyrics are spoken, softly, and in a foreign language is why I class it as an instrumental. Though before now I'd never thought about it, it was always just an instrumental in my mind. There are songs that have either words spoken, are sung softly and that have lyrics in a foreign language that I wouldn't class as instrumentals but I think this having all three of those makes it an instrumental to me.
Active Member
you're acute
Active Member
I'd go with studio version no, live version yes. It has lyrics printed in the booklet even, and not just one line or a sample or something.
Throbbing Member
I'm sure the main factor is just softness. I mean, it's not THAT far from The Wretched whispers.
Edit: ^ That's an interesting point above too -- that the live version cuts the lyrics. It wouldn't be THAT strange for them to trigger the sample or something, but they chose not to. It's just a weird middle-ground song and we'll never be able to decide! IS IT WHITE/GOLD or BLACK/BLUE?!?! (Ok I guess that had a real answer.)
Last edited by howdidislipinto; 04-30-2015 at 08:33 PM.
Active Member
So does this. It's not an instrumental. The version they play live might be an instrumental version, but that's it.
Throbbing Member
I don't think anyone is denying the actual definition. We're talking about how the track feels to us -- and to me, if I was in the mood for NIN instrumentals, there's no way La Mer isn't going on that playlist. And any time I've wanted to show off Trent's chops when it comes to writing a goddamned amazing instrumental track to a NIN-n00b, La Mer has been my absolute first choice. (Although obviously that field has opened way up since 2008.)
Memb, Member, The Membest
What about native French? For them La Mer is the only "real song", all other nin is gibberish
Throbbing Member
As a Canadian, I can tell you that to most french speakers it's still pretty close to gibberish. (Not an insult to Creole, it's just substantially different.)What about native French? For them La Mer is the only "real song", all other nin is gibberish
Throbbing Member
Besides the fact that the speech is brief, I think it is considered an instrumental because the speech seems somewhat "non-musical" or natural - that can be more easily disputed knowing some background info about the track's creation, but that might be irrelevant to some people's definitions. (And I'm not getting into an argument about whether there can be more than 1 valid definition of a word.)
Also, there's a difference between an instrumental recording and an instrumental composition. You can't dispute that there is speech on the La Mer recording, but you can argue that speech is not part of the La Mer composition. (I wouldn't personally argue that but some might.)
Active Member
And as a native French I'll confirm my fellow canadian's statement above : Créole languages are so different to French that most French-speaking people can't understand them. The vocabulary is used differently, and the syntax and grammar have nothing to do with French.
If English is gibberish, La Mer is that unsettling song where you get a word here and there but are incapable of making a sentence out of it.
The fact that the english lyrics on the booklet aren't even the actual translation doesn't help...
Josh Wink was on HLAH
IIRC, Trent gave the lyrics to Milfort to translate, and she did a little improving
And I'll agree it's not sung, per se (though, Zero-Sum, Demon Seed etc aren't either), but to call it outright instrumental seems to be just disregarding the vocals. Maybe it's a leftover of "Trent is NIN", so anyone else singing can't really be on the song.
RA-MEN ROPPAI
How to destroy angels_ "covers" La Mer; Trent atones for his sins. Amen.
I always thought of the spoken word in La Mer to be like a sound sample, if you will. I may listen to too much Underworld.
Last edited by Jon; 05-01-2015 at 03:50 AM.
Active Member
... Which is fine, as long as you're not trying to reverse-engineer the french lyrics out of the english translation :P
Thanks to ninwiki for providing an actual (if arguable, but all translations are debatable) translation...
It should be noted, also, that all Créoles are different, and that the Haitian Créole doesn't use the same vocabulary as, say, Créole used in French islands... Their respective histories are radically different, and the languages have evolved differently.
Also, The Downward Spiral's one of those songs where the lyrics are merely spoken and part of the background, rather than sung.
I agree with you that calling La Mer instrumental has probably more to do with who's singing than it has to do with how it's sung, although the fact that the song carries on and builds up long after the singing is over may be a factor.
Josh Wink was on HLAH
A comparison I made with someone else was to Bijou by Queen - the vocals are a very small section of the song, only one verse. It's not a song about the words, the words are just there to add colour whilst the music paints the picture. But the fact lyrical vocals exist means it still ain't instrumental.
Memb, Member, The Membest
I think if a song with vocals also has a released on artist-approved medium instrumental version (as it is in case of La Mer) then it may be rightfully called "instrumental" without reference to specific recording, i.e. leave to the other party right to choose/defend the desired meaning (sorry for my English)
Active Member
Then there's La Mer, and the La Mer instrumental ?
Why muddle it up, it's pretty straightforward and self-explanatory ?
There's an artist-approved sung version of A Warm Place, but it doesn't change the fact that A Warm Place is an instrumental...
Active Member
I guess this is sort of a random NIN poll...
I'm itching to put my Bluray burner to use. I know a lot of the 2013 festivals were pro-shot. Of what exists, what would you consider to be your favorite - and what are the best quality recordings available? I have the 10gb backhaul from the Made in America festival, but I can't seem to get that to burn in a format that will actually play on my player (no sound). Any other great quality recordings that you'd deem worthy of a disc?
Throbbing Member
Sorry if this was mentioned earlier, but the thought just popped into my head: doesn't A Warm Place have talking in it, too?
God is an American
Maybe, but it’s too indistinct to be considered part of the song. I think one of the textural samples they put into the album taken from old movie soundtracks worked its way in there (with some faint dialogue in the background). The vocal text in "La Mer" was composed specifically for the song.
Throbbing Member
Back in '07 I used to frequent boards on 9inchnails.cz. This site is now long time gone, but I was thinking if there is a way to read this board still through some internet archive pages like wayback machine? WBM does have very little archived from this site, are there any other similar services to this?
Throbbing Member
I know nincollector and nincatalog rank the releases by rarity but is there a similar thing for the band's posters? I would really like to know this one...
Throbbing Member
In summer 2013, The week Hesitation Marks was released. Trent did a show for BBC radio 6. It was called Under the Influence or something...it was Trent on air chatting to the presenter and playing his biggest musical influences.
It was very good, he went deep into his record collection. Did not just play the usual stuff he references. Played some unusual material. He played a different, great mix of Dig it by Skinny Puppy from 1986 i had never heard before which i really liked.
However i cant find a recording of it on the BBC website? Does any1 know where to get it?
Banned
Theres another 12" version of Dig It, so it was probably that
Flaccid Member
It doesn't look like this has been brought up before. According to imdb, Trent had a small roll in a German film called Recycled by Maria Von Heland. This is the first I've heard of it. Can anyone confirm this? They even list his characters name.
Active Member
Never trust IMDb. They tend to list people as being involved with projects when they're really not. Sometimes people will do that just so others will look at the page for their film.
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