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Skrillex Makes Actual Dubstep on Burial-Borrowing ‘Leaving’ EP

skrillex, ellie goulding, summit, leaving, video, ep

Above, you’ll find the new video for Skrillex’s Ellie Goulding collab “Summit,” from his “massively enjoyable, massively concussive” 2011 EP Bangarang. The clip is great, tons of fun really, with a gang of crazy Australian kids running around doing sometimes dangerous and always entertaining things. For instance: jumping into pools from moving vehicles, lighting each other’s hair on fire, playing with flowers and showing side boob and busting tricks on skateboards. It’s worth a watch, and newsworthy indeed, but then this happened:

The debate over what actually constitutes “dubstep” has quieted over the last year or so, with interested parties settling on shared custody with a distinction between American style (aggro effects and outsize bass) and U.K. style (heady atmosphere and outsize bass). Since he arrived on the scene, Los Angeles producer Skrillex has been celebrated/blamed for the U.S. strain’s market dominance. We’ve long known that Sonny Moore is better than #brostep, but he also hasn’t openly delved much into the longer-established English style of production, until now.

Skrillex surpised fans today with the three-song Leaving EP via his label OWSLA’s subscription service, The Nest, and the first two tracks have already drawn a mountain of comparisons to London dubstep pioneer Burial. “Leaving” itself trades in pitch-warped vocals, minimal skittering percussion, low swells of sub-bass, and rainy day ambience. Completely absent are the infamous “drops” of popular EDM (instead we’re offered a slow build with pretty orchestral adornment) and the exuberant major-chord pile-ups that give Skrillex songs their addictive edge.

Second song “The Reason” hits a bit harder, but still tones down the Transformers skronk in favor of melody and multidimensional texture, not to mention an out-of-character shout-out to old school electro mashed up with ’90s big beat. The closer, “Scary Bolly Dub,” is an bouncy, exotic remix of his first big hit, “Scary Monters and Nice Sprites,” and also a staple of his live set. While that one plays closer to what we’re used to, it’s still a willful disruption of the sound that made the dude famous. Oh, and it’s all streaming via Skrill’s YouTube channel:

“Leaving”:

“The Reason”:

“Scary Bolly Dub”: