Nine Inch Nails recorded much of The Downward Spiral at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles, the house where Sharon Tate and four others had been murdered by members of the Manson Family in 1969. Trent Reznor installed a studio there and called it Le Pig.
It is the kind of fact that can overwhelm discussion of the actual recording, so the more interesting detail for me is what happened inside that temporary studio.
The album moves constantly between programmed electronics, guitars, sampled material, processed drums and sounds that are difficult to identify at all. Adrian Belew is credited with “texture generating guitars” on “Mr. Self Destruct” and ring-modulated guitar on “The Becoming.” Flood contributed programming and production, while Alan Moulder handled much of the mixing.
The boundaries between instrument and treatment become deliberately unclear.
A guitar does not necessarily need to sound like a guitar.
A drum can become an impact.
Noise can become rhythm.
This is where industrial music becomes more than distorted rock. The studio is not reproducing a band standing in a room. It is constructing a psychological space from pieces that may have been performed, sampled, processed or destroyed.
The building eventually disappeared from the album’s identity.
The sound did not.
https://www.nin.com/music/the-downward-spiral/
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