Don't Be Afraid (album)
Encyclopedia
Don't Be Afraid is a 1997 Industrial
/ electronic
album by Information Society
. It saw a dramatic change in creative direction from the pop stylings of Information Society's earlier work to a darker sound with prominent themes of paranoia
and disaffection with modern life. The sound of Don't Be Afraid is most similar to the late '90s dark industrial
work of Gary Numan
.
The album was created as a solo effort by Information Society frontman Kurt Harland
. After the breakup of the band in the mid-90s, Harland decided to retain the band name for this album. In 2006, the band reunited (with Harland initially opting out, before rejoining in 2007) and reassumed the name.
of sorts to collect 16 separate ARJ
-compressed, password-protected files which add up to the completed "White Roses song" in WAV
format. Most of the pieces are now lost, due to hosting being taken down.
The song itself is a dark synth and acoustic guitar epic clocking in at over seven minutes with an overt Alice in Wonderland
theme of delusion and disorientation. The website Spacemutiny has a page of information related to this hunt and features an MP3
download of the complete song.
Production
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
/ electronic
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
album by Information Society
Information Society (band)
Information Society is an American band originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, primarily consisting of Kurt Larson , Paul Robb, and James Cassidy; the latter two reconvened the band in 2006, initially with Christopher Anton as lead vocalist, then with Harland rejoining them as lead vocalist by...
. It saw a dramatic change in creative direction from the pop stylings of Information Society's earlier work to a darker sound with prominent themes of paranoia
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
and disaffection with modern life. The sound of Don't Be Afraid is most similar to the late '90s dark industrial
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
work of Gary Numan
Gary Numan
Gary Numan is an English singer, composer, and musician, most widely known for his chart-topping 1979 hits "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars". His signature sound consisted of heavy synthesizer hooks fed through guitar effects pedals.Numan is considered a pioneer of commercial electronic music...
.
The album was created as a solo effort by Information Society frontman Kurt Harland
Kurt Harland
Kurt Harland is a singer, composer, and video game developer/audio engineer. He is best known as the lead singer of Information Society and composer of the soundtracks for the Legacy of Kain video game series.-Biography:...
. After the breakup of the band in the mid-90s, Harland decided to retain the band name for this album. In 2006, the band reunited (with Harland initially opting out, before rejoining in 2007) and reassumed the name.
Track listing
- The original retail release of Don't Be Afraid includes a bonus multimedia disc with videos, photos and other documents from the earlier years of Information Society offered from Harland's personal stash.
- Tracks 10 and 11 on the V.1.3 CD rerelease were accidentally swapped. The above tracklist reflects the intended order, as listed on the back cover.
White Roses
The 10th track on Don't Be Afraid is titled "White Roses" and sounds as 55 seconds of modem noise. When decoded, text data is displayed revealing clues for of an internet scavenger huntScavenger hunt
A scavenger hunt is a game in which the organizers prepare a list defining specific items, using which the participants — individuals or teams — seek to gather all items on the list — usually without purchasing them — or perform tasks or take photographs of the items, as specified...
of sorts to collect 16 separate ARJ
ARJ
ARJ is a software tool designed by Robert K. Jung for creating high-efficiency compressed file archives. ARJ is currently on version 2.85 for DOS and 3.15 for Windows and supports 16-bit and 32-bit Intel architectures.ARJ was one of two mainstream archivers for DOS and Windows during early and...
-compressed, password-protected files which add up to the completed "White Roses song" in WAV
WAV
Waveform Audio File Format , is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs...
format. Most of the pieces are now lost, due to hosting being taken down.
The song itself is a dark synth and acoustic guitar epic clocking in at over seven minutes with an overt Alice in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...
theme of delusion and disorientation. The website Spacemutiny has a page of information related to this hunt and features an MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
download of the complete song.
Alternate releases
- The Brazilian release of the album has three bonus tracks — remixes of "Closing In", "Are 'Friends' Electric?", and "On The Outside" by DJ Double B. Also, it had the full "White Roses" song, rather than the hidden message. However, it lacks the multimedia bonus disc.
- The Brazilian and German releases were given new covers, as the local publishers deemed the original one as "too satanic" (as the "black deer" character somewhat resembles the BaphometBaphometBaphomet is an imagined pagan deity , revived in the 19th century as a figure of occultism and Satanism. It appeared as a term for a pagan idol in trial transcripts of the Inquisition of the Knights Templar in the early 14th century...
). - The album was remastered and re-released on April 1, 2008, as a digital download in the iTunesITunes StoreThe iTunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple. Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, with over 200,000 items to purchase, it is, as of April 2008, the number-one music vendor in the United States...
and AmazonAmazon.comAmazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
music stores.http://www.informationsociety.us/2008/03/28/303/ - The same remaster was released on CD, on September 22, 2008.http://www.informationsociety.us/2008/09/22/322/ This version includes "White Roses" and a coverCover versionIn popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
of "Kebabträume," a 1980 hit song by German band D.A.F.Deutsch-Amerikanische FreundschaftDeutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft or D.A.F. is an influential German electropunk/NDW band from Düsseldorf, formed in 1978 featuring Gabriel "Gabi" Delgado-López , Robert Görl , Kurt "Pyrolator" Dahlke , Michael Kemner and Wolfgang Spelmans...
. Accidentally, the order of these two tracks was swapped. Remastered versions of "Empty 3.0" have a short but noticeable skip in the audio around 2:55.http://informationsociety.us/2008/03/28/303/#comment-6214 This release does not contain the data disk. Also, with the exception of the front cover, all of the album art is different from the 1997 release.
Credits
Performance- Kurt HarlandKurt HarlandKurt Harland is a singer, composer, and video game developer/audio engineer. He is best known as the lead singer of Information Society and composer of the soundtracks for the Legacy of Kain video game series.-Biography:...
– vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
, programmingProgramming (music)Programming is a form of music production and performance using electronic devices, often sequencers or computer programs, to generate music. Programming is used in nearly all forms of electronic music and in most hip hop music since the 1990s. It is also frequently used in modern pop and rock... - Fred MaherFred MaherFred Maher is an American drummer, programmer and record producer.He was a member of Massacre , Material, Scritti Politti, Lou Reed, and is best known as the producer of I'm Talking's album Bear Witness , Lou Reed's album New York , Matthew Sweet's album Girlfriend , and Information Society's self...
– guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
on track 5 - Steven Seibold – guitar on tracks 2, 3, 4, and 9, drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
on tracks 2, 6, and 9, programming - Rachel Girard – vocals on track 6
Production
- Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 9 producedRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
and mixedAudio mixing (recorded music)In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
by Steven Seibold, recorded at Seibold Studios. - Tracks 5 and 7 produced and mixed by Fred Maher, recorded at Fred Maher's studio.
- Tracks 8, 10 and 11 produced and mixed by Kurt Harland, recorded in KurtsCar.
Use in video games
Three songs were also used in video games that featured soundtracks composed by Kurt Harland.- Early versions of "Closing in" and "On the Outside" as well as reworkings of previous InSoc material were used in the 3DO3DO Interactive MultiplayerThe 3DO Interactive Multiplayer is a video game console originally produced by Panasonic in 1993. Further renditions of the hardware were released in 1994 by Sanyo and Goldstar. The consoles were manufactured according to specifications created by The 3DO Company, and were originally designed by...
version of BallzBallz3D Ballz is a two player 3D action fighting game for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, the Super NES and the 3DO. It was developed by PF Magic and published by Accolade in 1994. The 3DO version was released as a director's cut in 1995. Ballz offered three difficulty levels over a total of 21 matches...
. - The instrumental track "Ozar Midrashim" was used as the intro theme of Legacy of Kain: Soul ReaverLegacy of Kain: Soul ReaverLegacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is an action-adventure game developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Eidos Interactive. It was released for the PlayStation and Microsoft Windows in 1999 and for the Dreamcast in 2000. As the second game in the Legacy of Kain series, Soul Reaver is the sequel to...
, and would serve as the main theme and basis for much of the other music for subsequent games in the Legacy of KainLegacy of KainLegacy of Kain is a series of action-adventure video games developed initially by Silicon Knights in association with Crystal Dynamics. After a legal battle, Crystal Dynamics continued the series without Silicon Knights and Eidos Interactive became the publisher...
series.