A year after their last album, Year Zero, Nine Inch Nails deliver Ghosts I-IV, an eerie collection of instrumental tracks to channel your inner demons.

Last fall, Nine Inch Nails mastermind, Trent Reznor, locked himself in a studio for 10 weeks. The result, Ghosts I-IV, a 2-hour-long recording of new instrumental music composed and recorded during what Reznor describes as an “intense 10-week period”.

Beginning as an experiment to record an EP of new material, the project breaks new sounds as well as ground. Free of any music company contract, Nine Inch Nails, released Ghosts I-IV on its website to massive success.

Trent Reznor on Ghosts I-IV

Of the package, Reznor states on his website "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. This collection of music is the result of working from a very visual perspective - dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams.”

However, one person’s daydreams may equate to another’s nightmare. The music of Ghosts I-IV doesn’t relate itself well to bubblegum afternoons on grassy hills but could easily soundtrack intense moments on episodes of Lost or movies such as The Ring or action packed sequences in the Transformers movie.

Ghosts Disembody NIN Music

Creepy piano, sparse production and distorted noise infuse these recordings with otherworldly sounds. Each of the Ghosts albums is divided into 5 separate 9-song EPs that range from subliminal ambient to hard core industrial.

All Nine Inch Nails incarnations inhabit this experimental instrumental album tailor-made for listening through headphones. Only in this proximity can the listener absorb all the textures and feelings, all the strange and curious sounds creeping in and fading out.

This soundtrack leaks through speakers like a weary old friend, familiar yet somehow unnerving. Ghosts music makes the listener want to lock the doors, check under the beds and pray the sun rises in the morning.

Casual listeners may find the epic Ghosts package a bit of a macabre marathon, while fans of the more industrial side of the band may feel Rezner has mellowed. Either way, before the listener knows it, he is hitting 'repeat' to enjoy the ride all over again

Where to Get Ghosts I-IV

Ghosts I-IV is available on the Nine Inch Nails website. Choose from 9 songs for free, a fixed price of $5 for the entire 36 song collection or download the same package and receive a CD via mail for $10.

Die-hard fans can order a limited edition package that includes a deluxe edition with a hardcover book and a Blu-Ray disc for $75.

While digital download experimentation has proved that some artists such as Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead can bypass the traditional music company format and release material digitally via the internet, a physical CD release for Ghosts I-IV is slated for April 7, 2008.