Don't Be Afraid (album)

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Don't Be Afraid
Don't Be Afraid cover
Studio album by Information Society
Released September 23, 1997
Genre Industrial
Electronic
Length 59:46
Label Cleopatra Records
Producer Kurt Harland
Fred Maher
Steven Seibold
Professional reviews
Information Society chronology
Peace & Love, Inc.
(1992)		 Don't Be Afraid
(1997)		 InSoc Recombinant
(1999)

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 opting out) and reassumed the name.

Contents

[edit] Track listing

  1. "Empty 3.0" — 8:32
  2. "Closing In 2.0" — 8:11
  3. "On The Outside 2.1" — 6:46
  4. "Ending World 1.1" — 5:31
  5. "Seek300 2.11" — 4:29
  6. "The Sky Away 2.0" — 3:59
  7. "Are 'Friends' Electric? 2.0" — 5:41
  8. "Ozar Midrashim 1.1" — 6:52
  9. "The Ridge 1.1" — 8:41
  10. "White Roses 1.1 (300 8-N-1 ASCII Mode Or Terminal Download)" (modem noise) — 0:56

All songs composed by Kurt Harland, except "Are 'Friends' Electric?" by Gary Numan.

The 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.

Don't Be Afraid's Brazilian cover
Don't Be Afraid's Brazilian cover

[edit] 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 hunt 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 7 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.

Don't Be Afraid's German cover
Don't Be Afraid's German cover

[edit] 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 Baphomet).
  • The album was remastered and re-released in April 1st, 2008, as a digital download in the iTunes and Amazon music stores. [1]

[edit] Credits

[edit] Use in video games

Three songs were also used in video games that had their 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 3DO version of Ballz.
  • The instrumental track "Ozar Midrashim" would later be used as the intro theme of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, and it would serve as the main theme and basis for much of the other music for subsequent games in the series.

[edit] References

[edit] External links