So here it is: Trent Reznor’s first effort after becoming “freed” from the shackles of megacorporate musicalconglomerates is a Nine Inch Nails 36 song effort entitled Ghosts I-IV, as in there being four volumes to the work.

Reznor is quoted on the site: “I’ve been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn’t have made sense until this point.” Is he implicitly telling us that, perhaps, record executives would have never let him release the album?

The first volume can be downloaded for free. It comes in a variety of formats (including FLAC), but the player-friendly, DRM-free MP3 version comes LAME-encoded at 320 kbps. That’s quite good. All you have to do is supply your email to get a download link. After that, the digital download of all four volumes is a mere $5 for the same high-quality files, so the whole thing is really a steal. Physical formats are available as well, like the Ultra-Deluxe Limited Edition Package which will run you for $300.