I feel obliged to plug NIN’s new album, as Trent Reznor has yet again risen to new level generosity. The Slip which was released today is – just like its predecessor Ghosts – available as a FLAC download, DRM free and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike. As if that were not enough, it is also completely free – there is no way you can pay for it at the moment (there will be physical releases available later on). And yes there is more: the audio is also available as 24Bit/96kHz Wave files, which will make you happy if you spent a whole lot of money on your audio equipment.

So what about the music? I didn’t have a chance to listen to it more than once yet, but from the first taste it sounds like another excellent NIN album. The mood and sound differ quite a bit from the (non-instrumental) predecessor Year Zero, it’s a lot more organic and laid-back. This man does not cease to inspire.

Just recently I wanted to check whether the lord of the samplers (Amon Tobin) will release any new music any time soon. But instead of advertising new releases Amon Tobin’s website took me on a field recording excursion. Resembling the approach he took with his excellent latest album, where he actually recorded the samples himself instead of recycling old material, a heavy Flash application allows the visitor to control some kind of ship in order to search for specific life forms.

Once such a life form has been found, the visitor can record a set of samples from that species. When all of the samples have been recorded, the specimen will perform what could be called a dance accompanied by an audio track composed of the previously recorded samples.

I’m definitely not a big fan of neither Flash-supported nor solemnly Flash-based web sites, but this one is very well done and provides an original experience that is actually related to the art it is intended to present.