Fourteen years after The Downward Spiral, Trent Reznor is still the scariest one-man studio band around. As a gift to loyal fans, he’s literally giving away NIN’s latest blast of industrial soundcraft for free at www.theslip.nin.com. What does this have to do with bass, you ask? First, he’s playing it as well as anyone in his idiom, as always; second, The Slip is yet another clinic in Reznor’s bottomless repertoire of slightly-to-insanely overdriven bass sounds (just try and cop the tones on “Discipline” and “Echoplex”—you’ll be at it a while). Most importantly, bass is the defining factor in many of his tunes, due to the repeating (and tonally obtuse) keyboard and guitar patterns that define his style. After establishing a song’s sonic atmosphere, Trent likes to drop the bass line down hard as the final driving piece in the harmonic puzzle, and the payoff is sweet for sonic admirers and low end enthusiasts alike. [Ed. Note: Frequent Beck collaborator Justin Meldal-Johnsen will be pulling all this off on the NIN tour.]
Bryan Beller