NINE INCH NAILS: THE FRAGILE - KHOURI DEVIATIONS 1 MIX

01. Somewhat Damaged (Kh Edit)
02. The Day The World Went Away (Kh Edit)
03. The Wretched (Kh Edit)
04. Taken
05. La Mer (Kh Edit)
06. The Great Below (Kh Edit)
07. Complications Of The Flesh
08. The Frail (Kh Edit)
09. The Fragile (Kh Edit)
10. Just Like You Imagined
11. The Way Out Is Through
12. Slipping Away
13. Was It Worth It? (Kh Edit)
14. The Mark Has Been Made (Kh Edit)
15. 10 Miles High (Kh Edit)
16. The Big Come Down (Kh Edit)
17. +Appendage
18. The Great Collapse (Kh Edit)
19. Underneath It All (Kh Edit)
20. And All That Could Have Been
21. Leaving Hope [With Decay] (Kh Edit)

Time: 95min
Recorded in 2020

Compiled almost exclusively of custom edits of officially released tracks, instrumentals, and rarities from The Fragile sessions, this imagines an alt-universe, more electronica version of the 1999 album; something that sounds more like Nine Inch Nails records before and since.

In 2017 NIN released The Fragile Deviations 1, which collected theretofore unreleased instrumental and otherwise alternate versions of songs we knew from 1999’s The Fragile, as well as numerous contemporaneously recorded tracks we’d never heard before. The volume of material was overwhelming, but sifting through it offers a glimpse into another world where The Fragile could have sounded more rhythmic, ambient, and altogether more synthy than the distinctly “organic” original album. Indeed, I was surprised to discover so many electronic elements — percussive effects, distortions, even whole synth parts — were removed from Fragile songs we know to make room for the vocals in the final mixes. Some of the unused tracks were echoes of the drum ‘n bass/electronica territory NIN explored with “The Perfect Drug” in 1997.

Not to be mistaken as criticism of the original album, what I’ve done here is try to present a fan fiction version of what that alternate universe version of The Fragile might have sounded like. Most of the songs are painstakingly re-edited/mixed to include elements retrieved from sister versions of themselves. In some cases I’ve shortened songs; in others I’ve extended them so as to showcase things that had been lost in the final vocal mixes.

I did give myself some ground rules with respect to the audio:

• No anachronistic audio; everything has to be taken from The Fragile, The Fragile Deviations 1, and contemporaneous single or EP releases from The Fragile “era.”

• Any alternate versions or remixes, even those I’m just sampling for parts, must be created by then-current members of Nine Inch Nails, and not outside talent (such as Telefon Tel Aviv). Otherwise I would have used the Benelli remix of “The Frail,” which is one of my favorite NIN releases. Alas.

Finally I remixed the album art using graphic elements from the old Nine Inch Nails website that launched with The Fragile,which fans have helpfully preserved around the internet. The images were created by David Carson and the website was designed by Rob Sheridan, and the layout I used is obviously identical to that of the original Fragile album cover. The idea here was to contrast the original design — which featured a waterfall and flowers — with distinctly artificial-looking images, including obvious pixelation artifacts, reflecting the more electronic nature of this fake version of the record.