TRENT REZNOR/SAUL WILLIAMS COLLABORATION TO BE GIVEN AWAY VIA FREE DOWNLOAD

The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, the new Trent Reznor-produced album by poet/artist/actor/musician Saul Williams, will be avail for a free download (or, if you want a higher quality FLAC version or a 320kbit/s mp3, you can shell out five bucks – but we all know that no one besides Williams’ mom is gonna pay that) starting November 1. You can pre-register for the download – which will feature such cleverly titled tracks as “Tr(n)igger,” “WTF!” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday” (I’m pretty sure that one’s taken, dude) – on Williams’ official website now, and unlike Radiohead’s recent free offering, this one will not be released at a later date in another format.

In a press release, Reznor asserted that “After my own recent dealings with record labels we decided to release it directly to the fans. There are obvious similarities in how Radiohead just released their new record and the way we’ve chosen to… I feel we’ve improved upon their idea in a few profound ways that benefit the consumer.” The statement doesn’t elaborate how this improves upon what Radiohead just did, but hey, how would we know it was really Trent if he didn’t talk some smack, right?

-AR