Don't Be Afraid (album)

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 1990s dark industrial work of Gary Numan.

"White Roses" redirects here. For the intellectual resistance group during Nazi Germany, see White Rose. For the Charli XCX song, see Number 1 Angel.
Don't Be Afraid
Studio album by
Information Society
ReleasedSeptember 23, 1997
GenreIndustrial, electronic
Length59:46
LabelCleopatra Records
ProducerKurt Harland
Fred Maher
Steven Seibold
Information Society chronology
Peace and Love, Inc.
(1992)		 Don't Be Afraid
(1997)		 InSoc Recombinant
(1999)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[1]

The album was created as a solo effort by Information Society frontman Kurt Harland. After the breakup of the band in the mid-1990s, 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

All tracks are written by Kurt Harland, except where noted.

No.TitleWriter(s)Length
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"Gary Numan5:41
8."Ozar Midrashim 1.1" 6:52
9."The Ridge 1.1" 8:41
10."White Roses 1.1 (300 8-N-1 Terminal Mode Or ASCII Download)" (modem noise) 0:56
Don't Be Afraid V.1.3 rerelease
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
10."White Roses 1.0" 7:59
11."Kebabträume 1.0"Robert Görl5:23
  • 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 collection. Unlike most companion CD-ROMs, it is not self-executing, the user has to navigate through the file system to fetch the material.
  • Tracks 10 and 11 on the V.1.3 CD re-release were accidentally swapped. The above track list 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 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 piece lasting over seven minutes whose main theme is depression and internal identity crisis. The website Spacemutiny has a page of information related to this hunt and an MP3 download of the complete song.

Alternative 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 "too satanic" (as the "black deer" character somewhat resembles the Baphomet).
  • The album was remastered and re-released on April 1, 2008, as a digital download in the iTunes and Amazon music stores.
  • The same remaster was released on CD, on September 22, 2008. This version includes "White Roses" and a cover version of "Kebabträume", a 1980 hit song by the German band D.A.F.. 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. 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.

Personnel

Production

  • Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 9 produced and mixed 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 media

Three songs were used in video games that had 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" was used as the intro theme of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, and was the main theme and basis for much of the other music for subsequent games in the Legacy of Kain series.

References
  1. Allmusic review
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