Skrillex Book Club: Volume 14 - hit me where it hurts x & Kora (2025-26)

[hprara]

Image by bepmp3

Time for the fourteenth instalment in the "Skrillex Book Club".
ICYMI, we're taking a listening journey through the discography of the great Sonny Moore and sharing some of our thoughts along the way.
Last week, we lifted him up.

This week, we got two little ones...

hit me where it hurts x (2025) & Kora (2026)



After last week's monumental listen, we get a little chance to unwind. I actually hadn't heard the first of these two EPs until today. And it's pretty good. Some little extras from FUS and original versions which are nice to hear though I think I prefer their appearances on the actual album better than here. I think the first two tracks on here are the strongest. 'fuze' sounds like it could've come out 10 years ago but not in a bad way. In an awesome way actually. It's a very nice combo of the newer Skrillex sound and the brostep we'd come to know him for. I think I still like the album VIP of 'while you were sleeping' better out of the two but this one is still cool. A touch too repetitive but really nice bass design. And the rest is just alright. I immediately recognized the title track from the tail end of 'ZEET NOISE' on FUS which makes sense as Dylan Brady is a featured artist on both. And once again, I like it better there. Most of the version on here is just percussion. It works on the album because its a continuous mix and so it doesn't dwell too long on the less interesting parts of the song. The version of Voltage on here is neat and has some nice drive to it.

Now, "Kora" on the other hand, this is where its at as the kids say. A surprise birthday release at the start of this year. This is the kind of sound design showcase I can get behind. Strip everything back. Keep it short and sweet but leave the listener wanting more. And oh man do I want more. In slight contrary to what I grasp the consensus is, I actually love every track here. I think they all hold their place well. Of course, the title track is probably the stand out. The bass, the MySpace era Sonny vocals, the censored bits and Ableton metronome in the latter half. Just beautiful. But really, everything is great. 'Yo Yan' may be the most lighthearted and kind of goofy of the three but it just has a certain catchiness to it. 'Someone Said' has some insane arps and the way that single vocal sample is manipulated in the ways that it is just blows my mind a little. Like how did he think to do that? I always love hearing elements of previously released songs that tend to get buried in their original form.

And with that, the canonical Skrillex run comes to a close. We laughed, we cried, we swore at Diplo a lot. We are now in the present day (not for long though). Yeah, there have been a couple singles since Kora but nothing notable enough to warrant a week quite yet. All in all, I'm left excited to see what we get next from ol' Sonny. There are a couple concerning things I hope don't become habitual like the stolen single artwork for 'hit me where it hurts x' and the allegedly(?) AI generated cover for Kora. But that aside, I'm liking what I'm hearing.


Now it's your turn!
What are your thoughts on this album? Do you love it/hate it? Have you even heard it? (if not, go listen, the image is a link to it's RYM page)
Speak your mind!

And join us next week as we return to where it all began....Or I guess, slightly before it all began....

[RAW_]

I remember listening to the hit me where it hurts EP when it came out and thinking it was just okay. Now that I've given it another proper full listen after 6 months I can now say that its actually pretty good. "Fuze" is easily the best track on here. Classic old-school Skrillex brostep with touches of new Skrillex added to the mix. Wouldn't feel out of place on FUS. The original(?) version of "while you were sleeping" is cool to hear, but I prefer the VIP on FUS. The drums on this version are a bit more plain compared to the Brazilian Funk-esque drums on the FUS version, but there are bits here where the growl hits a little harder. I also like the drum pattern in the last minute of this version. "Move Ting" is really annoying at first (please stop acting like a cat Nakeesha you're making my dog uncomfortable), but obviously the drops are fire. Especially love the part in the middle where it goes triplet mode. The title track is essentially just a mashup of "ZEET NOISE" from FUS and Caroline Polachek's "Hit Me Where It Hurts". Its whatever. It really just makses me wish Skrillex and Caroline Polachek collabed for real. I don't really know why I thought this whole EP was kinda mid for the longest time when this is the only real dud in the tracklist. To close out the EP there's a version of "Voltage" which pales in comparison to the FUS version but is still kinda cool.

The Kora EP is one of the most unique sounding projects Sonny's done in a while. I can't say I'm head over heels for this, but I do appreciate the experimentation. A practically drumless EP with some ambient moments thrown into some interesting growly soundscapes sounds really cool and paper, and for the most part it is, even though two of the three tracks on here does something I find a little annoying. The "doot doot doos" on Yo Yan and the censor-bleepy synth parts on the title track kinda get on my nerves, but other than that i enjoyed this EP. It's not quite Doompy Poomp levels of experimentation but I'm always curious to hear Sonny shake up his sound every now and then.

[hprara]

A practically drumless EP with some ambient moments thrown into some interesting growly soundscapes sounds really cool and paper, and for the most part it is, even though two of the three tracks on here does something I find a little annoying. The "doot doot doos" on Yo Yan and the censor-bleepy synth parts on the title track kinda get on my nerves, but other than that i enjoyed this EP.

i kinda fw the "doot doot doos". i think that's part of why i find it catchy. i get it tho.
the censor beeps were a little jarring when i first listened to it but i came around to them.
i appreciate the "practically" in front of the drumless lol. i feel like too many people were quick to call it that even though there's still top end percussion and even the choice of bass sounds here just kinda fill in where a kick would go anyway. i blame daft punk.

[gauze_]

this week on "forum user gauze_ does too much" i figured "huh i dont know these seem too short i have to torture myself more" so this week im also taking a look at a selection of singles from post qff/dgtc. i also meant to do this on my own time but never did so now im forcing myself to do it because this seems like the most opportune time. most notably this includes what i call the "rekordbox trilogy" a spread of 3 singles in 2023 which have a deliberate choice of placing the title of the song at the very top of the cover art so that when the song is placed in your rekordbox (and probably other dj software) library you can easily see the title and select it. 2 of these have flowdan on them which excites me because he was one of my favorite parts of qff. other selections include but are not limited to: taka and its remixes, and all the new singles from this year so far. this will be in chronological order up until the eps, which ill skip and push back to be the last things i cover for ease of reading. i sure hope i dont get bored!

with that all written out, i started with baby again.. which is a track that features the blowjob brothers known as fred again.. and four tet. i jest i dont hate them i objectively have to respect four tet for when he played autechre during his lollapalooza set like thats so funny (also this cover art is really funny) but yeah the song itself is. fiiine. its got a groove. whatever. next was vai sentando from the fast x soundtrack which was actually kinda good??? it was fun enough to listen to.

onto the rekordbox trilogy, starting with fine day anthem with boys noize, its fine. not big on the vocals and the rest of it is also just sort of alright. badders however, is really fun. i think i just really like flowdan and should probably listen to his discography some. pepper is also good. im kind of surprised im normally not a fan of lil baby but he was actually good on this and his verses were good. honestly might be my favorite so far.

also for readability, i listened to push before taka and its remixes because the song came out between taka and the remixes. so push is good i think im just not that big on tearout. taka original was just boring and felt a little h&m summer sale (update on day 2, i didnt know this song was in the iphone 16 reveal trailer when i made this joke but it just makes perfect sense), but the remixes are all better and more interesting in different ways. the taiki nulight remix has some good textures and drum sounds, the peekaboo version is fully a better version of the original. it does enough different to warrant its existence but still feels very consistent with the ideas that went into the original. also theres a little scary monsters YES! sample placed towards the end which was cute. and the caribou remix is just fun.

theres 2 more singles before fus comes out so thats what this paragraph is. those tracks are talk to me with champion, four tet, and naisha, and heavy heart with loco dice and fireboy dml. talk to me is good theres this one bubbly sound throughout thats really stimmy. heavy heart just felt like a longer more boring version of talk to me LOL its like decent i guess.

realizing im super tired and going to need to split this into 2 separate listening sessions (1:38 am as i write this) so well be back!

we back. 15 hours later (4:32 pm) was busy now its time to listen to more!!

the 2 post fus pre hmwihx singles are kixa with slikback and la noche with chris lake and anita b queen. kixa is super interesting. a really cool mix of textures and ideas that blends together seemlessly. la noche is... kinda the opposite. ive never really been a bass house person but this doesnt really stop me from finding this one especially kinda nothing. its fine enough but is only really interesting and captivating in the last 40ish seconds or so when that really gnarly revving sound shows up.

as previously stated i will be skipping hit me where it hurts x for now for readability purposes which leads to the 2026 post kora singles. there actually wasnt anything released between hmwihx and kora so were skipping kora too and going straight to the new stuff. the 4 tracks are bass dhol with ahadadream and raf saperra, syrinx with rhr, surfboard with tokischa, and duro with young miko. going in order i really wasnt excited for bass dhol because i found taka really boring and this is another track with ahadadream, but i was pleasantly surprised by it being more interesting!! its still nothing crazy but definitely more enjoyable to listen to. syrinx i wasnt sure whether or not to be excited because i saw a resident advisor review say that it was by far the worst track of that whole ep rhr put out, and i kinda see what the person who wrote that review means by it just not feeling like much. its fine. its okay. surfboard on the other hard isnttt reallyyyyy. im not a reggaeton hater i think theres good reggaeton fantastic even but this just kinda isnt. it feels supremely nothing compared to everything else ive listened to for this weeks forum and i dont even know how to explain it other than if you know you know i guess. duro is hype though i love some euro trance. i wish it was more of that and there was a bit less hardgroove going on but it was still good!! one of the better tracks so far for sure.

with allllllll of that out of the way it is actually time for what the week covers. hit me where it hurts x is a very interesting ep in the way that the title track is kinda just the worst one LOL. just didnt feel it too much. like its good because zeet noise is good and hit me where it hurts is good but thats kinda it. it just IS the sum of its parts not more not less. we didnt really need it but its cool it exists. feels more like a soundcloud throwaway than a like whole ass track to name a whole ass ep after. at first with fuze i was like "im not sure i get it" but that second drop hits different. and i think while you were sleeping is good but that might be bias towards that alien sample lmfao. move ting is also pretty good but i think that first drop is just too good the rest of it is like almost boring compared to that LOL. and honestly this version of voltage is really good? its not amazing because i have the same problem with it that i do with duro. give me more trance mr moore.

moving on to kora i actually knew basically nothing about this ep going in so i was kinda surprised when yo yan sounded like that and then someone said sounded like that. and then even more surprised when kora sounded like that. okay but for an actual breakdown yo yan kinda hype. i wish it was in my face a little more honestly those hits are too hard for their own good. someone said was actually super cool and at parts reminded me of one of my favorite tracks of last year, kaleidoscope by himera. and kora is also awesome and those beeps are fucking fire i looove weird shit like that.

for an over all, the conclusion is the same as my extra drought week selections or the jack u remixes or make it bun dem and the remixes: i didnt need to do all that dog. these eps were good though. skrillex give me more trance and give me an ep with oval and my life is yours

best track: someone said
worst track: surfboard

[hprara]

okay but for an actual breakdown yo yan kinda hype. i wish it was in my face a little more honestly those hits are too hard for their own good.

THATS WHAT IM SAYINNNN

[bepmp3]

most notably this includes what i call the "rekordbox trilogy" a spread of 3 singles in 2023 which have a deliberate choice of placing the title of the song at the very top of the cover art so that when the song is placed in your rekordbox (and probably other dj software) library you can easily see the title and select it. 2 of these have flowdan on them which excites me because he was one of my favorite parts of qff. other selections include but are not limited to: taka and its remixes, and all the new singles from this year so far.

worth mentioning why (most likely) all the singles post-qff/dgtc and pre-fus have those two distant artwork styles, at some point not too long after qff/dgtc skrillex very infamously tweeted something along the lines of "QFF / DGTC / CONTRA / SKRLX" hinting that he was gonna release two more albums that year, why he seemed to scrap the concept idfk. i like to theorize that he thought he had two more albums left in the contract but then it turned out to be one and he was like fuck that and dropped FUS instead.

i like to believe that the more abstract album covers were singles for contra and the so-called "rekordbox trilogy" with the black bg/orange text were singles for SKRLX. TAKA and Push on spotify even feature a (very unnecessary) fake artist "contra" which just links to a blank artist page lol.

honestly there could be a chance he's still working on contra and SKRLX actually just turned out to be FUS, because even after FUS he's still putting out singles that feature the abstract imagery (LA NOCHE, fuze, Bass Dhol). so... idk!! a more devoted skrillexpert needs to fill me in on this.