A bundle arrived on my doorstep one random Monday. Inside was a handwritten observe from Skrillex: “Hope you find some time in your busy life to listen to this album from start to finish. ᥫ᭡ Sonny”
Spoiler alert: I made time. And inside only a few minutes of listening, it grew to become clear that this was the sound of an artist who has nothing left to show—however a lot extra to say.
Born Sonny Moore, the prodigy who erupted from the MySpace ether has spent over a decade shapeshifting—punk screamer, dubstep deity, pop architect—solely to return now with the elusive album his ride-or-die followers might solely dream of for the reason that seminal Recess again in 2014. His disciplined Quest for Fireplace and Do not Get Too Shut albums of 2023 had been drops of water on a desert tongue, and people followers by no means stopped aching for the return of that classic, feral Skrillex growl.
However right here it’s now—reimagined, reborn and roaring again into our cerebellums. That includes 34 tracks, the album is his Interstellar, a sprawling, cyclical epic that loops again to his roots whereas spiraling into the stratosphere. It is Skrillex unchained, a cathartic eruption that lastly fulfills his Atlantic Data contract after 15 years and opens the floodgates to a future the place his music solutions to nobody however his personal stressed genius.
Skrillex in late-2024 revealed his plans to go unbiased after finishing his Atlantic deal by advantage of his subsequent physique of labor, at this time’s launch of F*CK U SKRILLEX YOU THINK UR ANDY WARHOL BUT UR NOT!! <3. “I’ve never felt more inspired and in lockstep with my intentions as an artist,” he mentioned on the time.
The stakes have by no means been increased. Few artists wield the form of affect Skrillex does, and fewer nonetheless exit main label offers on their very own phrases. Going unbiased means full inventive management, and if historical past has taught us something, it is that Moore thrives when the principles do not apply.
As he cuts the company wire, one fact rings even louder than his ageless dubstep: Skrillex hasn’t simply come residence, however redefined what residence will be.
A time capsule lastly cracked open, the album options many long-lost tracks that when lived solely in on-line boards and grainy SoundCloud rips, shaping the instincts of at this time’s largest DJs once they had been nonetheless youngsters, wide-eyed and wired to his sound. These unearthed gems now carry with them a way of each nostalgia and evolution, proving that the music we look forward to would not simply belong to the previous, but additionally to the long run it unknowingly constructed.
However FUS is not only a journey down reminiscence lane. If it is a museum tour of previous glories at instances, it is a mad scientist’s lab at others, the place Skrillex brews up boundary-pushing bangers with reckless creativity.
He tosses conference right into a shredder with Digital Riot on the anarchic “WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING VIP,” producing snarling synths that gnash via a rabid rhythm. Then comes the gorgeous “RECOVERY,” his long-awaited collaboration with fellow music manufacturing savant House Laces, with whom he takes dubstep to the bleeding edge.
That subversive spirit runs roughshod via the album, like in “GULAB XX.” Equal components seduction and destruction, the monitor finds Naisha’s come-hither vocals mutating right into a ferocious drop. Skrillex goes even additional along with his contrarian strategy within the elegant “LOOK AT YOU,” a haunting minimize with Jónsi the place distorted textures envelop you want a sensory deprivation tank—claustrophobic but transcendent.
Amid the pandemonium, we discover moments of tortured magnificence. “SAY GOODBYE” includes a spellbinding lyrical efficiency from NJOMZA, whose vaporous voice drifts like mist over Skrillex’s hypnotic manufacturing earlier than fracturing beneath the burden of a guttural dubstep drop. It is a duality that defines the album—serenity and savagery, woven along with a virtuosic hand.
That duality blooms totally in “VOLTAGE,” a mythic beast of a monitor that followers have chased like a white whale since its early teases again in 2011. Now formally unleashed, it is a reminder that even in his most tender moments, Skrillex remains to be digital music’s architect of the collision course between readability and chaos.
All of it factors to a legacy in some way nonetheless in its infancy for Skrillex, who appears to be simply warming up, regardless of already reshaping the sound of a technology. As he severs ties with the label machine, his subsequent chapter feels much less like a leap into the unknown and extra like a seasoned producer betting on himself after years of navigating the trade’s ups and downs in lockstep with a fan base that is caught with him via each pivot.
To that finish, the album is not some ethereal farewell, however a loud, sensible flex of what Skrillex can do when he is calling the pictures. Count on extra collabs, extra dangers and much more noise, all straight from the supply.
You may take heed to F*CK U SKRILLEX YOU THINK UR ANDY WARHOL BUT UR NOT!! <3 under and discover the album on streaming platforms right here.
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