Danny Elfman revisits Native Intelligence on latest collaboration with Trent Reznor

By Natasha Scharf
( Prog )
published

Maverick movie composer Danny Elfman teams up with Nine Inch Nails mastermind for crazy new single - stream it here!

Danny Elfman portrait against a red background
(Image credit: Jacob Boll)

Avant-garde musician and Grammy and Emmy Award-winning soundtrack composer Danny Elfman has teamed up with Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor for a reworking of Native Intelligence. It's just one of the previously unreleased tracks that appears on a new collector's edition of Big Mess, available now via ANTI-/Epitaph.

Says Elfman of the Reznor, “He’s always been a big inspiration to me, not to mention he has one of my all-time favourite singing voices.”

The deluxe vinyl set - limited to just 1,500 copies worldwide - includes four coloured LPs with lenticular sleeves, which contain new mixes and remixes of the album tracks. Among them are Reznor and Elfman's updated version of True along with new mixes featuring FEVER333, Einstürzende Neubauten's Blixa Bargeld, Squarepusher and Zola Jesus collaborator Xiu Xiu. There's also a 60-page hardcover artbook, a 20-page soft cover lyric book, a signed art print, and a light-up model of Elfman’s hand.

 The release comes ahead of Elfman's two planned concerts at Coachella titled, Danny Elfman: From Boingo To Batman To Big Mess And Beyond! The setlist for the shows on April 16 and 23 will include the first ever live performances of material from Big Mess, as well as Oingo Boingo songs, which he's not performed since their 1995 farewell tour, and other material from throughout his musical career.

Watch the new visualiser for the Native Intelligence below.

Big Mess Collector's Edition Tracklist

Side A

1 Sorry
2 True
3 In Time
4 Everybody Loves You

Side B

1 Dance With The Lemurs
2 Serious Ground
3 Choose Your Side
4 We Belong

Side C

1 Happy
2 Just A Human
3 Devil Take Away
4 Love In The Time Of COVID
5 Native Intelligence

Side D

1 Better Times
2 Cruel Compensation
3 Kick Me
4 Get Over It
5 Insects

Bonus Discs

Side A

1 We Belong (Rafiq Bhatia Remix)
2 Serious Ground (Xiu Xiu Remix)
3 Happy (33EMYBW Remix)
4 Insects (Machine Girl Insecticidal Tendencies Remix)
5 In Time (HEALTH Remix)

Side B

1 Kick Me (Zach Hill Remix)
2 Sorry (Kid606 Remix)
3 Everybody Loves You (Boris Remix)
4 We Belong (Squarepusher Remix)

Side C

1 Kick Me (Zach Hill Remix V2 Zach Plays Drums)
2 Insects (Debugged & Refucked Machine Girl Remix)
3 Insects (Stu Brooks Remix)
4 In Time (It All Falls Down – clipping. Remix)

Side D

1 True (feat. Trent Reznor)
2 Native Intelligence (feat. Trent Reznor)
3 Kick Me (feat. FEVER333)
4 In Time (feat. Blixa Bargeld)
5 We Belong (feat. Rebekah Del Rio)

Big Mess box set exploding packshot

(Image credit: Press)
Natasha Scharf
Natasha Scharf
Deputy Editor, Prog

Contributing to Prog since the very first issue, writer and broadcaster Natasha Scharf was the magazine’s News Editor before she took up her current role of Deputy Editor, and has interviewed some of the best-known acts in the progressive music world from ELP, Yes and Marillion to Nightwish, Dream Theater and TesseracT. Starting young, she set up her first music fanzine in the late 80s and became a regular contributor to local newspapers and magazines over the next decade. The 00s would see her running the dark music magazine, Meltdown, as well as contributing to Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Terrorizer and Artrocker. Author of music subculture books The Art Of Gothic and Worldwide Gothic, she’s since written album sleeve notes for Cherry Red, and also co-wrote Tarja Turunen’s memoirs, Singing In My Blood. Beyond the written word, Natasha has spent several decades as a club DJ, spinning tunes at aftershow parties for Metallica, Motörhead and Nine Inch Nails. She’s currently the only member of the Prog team to have appeared on the magazine’s cover.