THE NIN HOTLINE

Wednesday July 29, 2009

Getting to know The Horrors (oh, and here's a contest)

Even though it's common knowledge that engaging people online is a great way to expose people to music, it's still very rare that bands or promoters get in touch with fan sites. So kudos to The Horrors for reaching out and sending along an MP3 of the first single off their Primary Colours album, called Sea Within a Sea. That link you just read past? No sign-up form or anything, just a direct link to an eight minute long MP3.

Okay, they also sent us a link to a couple of videos - the previously mentioned Sea Within a Sea, as well as Who Can Say. I had actually first heard about the Horrors myself when I learned that one of my favorite directors, Chris Cunningham had come out of hiding to direct their video for Sheena is a Parasite, so it was a pleasant surprise to hear that they were playing three of the four NIN shows in New York in late August.

Their new album, Primary Colours, was produced by Geoff Barrow (of Portishead) and Chris Cunningham and came out in May to some pretty great reviews. Reviews, however, are kind of dumb when you can just listen to the album yourself - oh, look at that, there's a widget right next to me and I didn't even notice.

But what happens if you don't have Flash? What if the only way you can listen to music is using a turntable? Fret not, luddite audiophile, we've got a contest aimed squarely at you. We will simultaneously try to accommodate your dated technology, while forcing 'new' tech on you. Yeah, you know what's coming next.

No, you don't have to follow us on Twitter, but you do have to have an account and send us a somewhat specific tweet. Tell us what make and model turntable you have, and use the ego-stroking hashtag #fanjob. For example: "@ninhotline I use a Technics 1200s to make the wikky-wikky noise #fanjob" - (note: using that exact text for your entry exempts you from the contest, unless you're @Therum)

I don't care how many turntables you have - pick your favorite one, because I only want you to tweet once. If you squeeze in a photo of your turntable setup, I'll count your entry twice in the final drawing.

Wait, what's this for anyway? We're giving away five signed copies of the Horrors album Primary Colours on vinyl. How long is the contest open? Well, Twitter's a fast moving medium, so we'll keep it open until Friday night at midnight Eastern time. Five winners will be drawn randomly from the resulting mess of tweets. The contest is international - because that's how we like to do contests here, and because the Horrors have cool people working for them.

I think that I've typed enough on the topic now. Hopefully it's enough text to wrap around the widget on your screen resolution - it's wrapping around it on the preview under where I'm typing, so that's my cue to hit "Publish."