Skrillex Book Club: Volume 6 - Recess (2014)

[hprara]

Image by bepmp3

Time for the the sixth 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 looked at the Leaving EP.

This week, we go outside for...

Recess (2014)



The first full-length album effort from Skrillex (no, we're not counting the Spring Breakers soundtrack). What an odd one it is. Skrillex had fully infiltrated the mainstream at this point and dub/brostep had dug its claws into the cultural zeitgeist. And what a piece of that zeitgeist this is. This has got to be one of the most 2014 albums to ever exist. In terms of both auditory and visual aesthetic (just watch the album teaser). Emojis, ""gaming"", green screen explosions. This album sounds like playing Black Ops II. This album is where the brostep descriptor is probably most apt in my eyes. I often say Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory is an album that sounds like it was made with the intent to be used in crusty 2000s AMVs (even separated from the reality that yes, they were used for that). This album is like that but for trickshot compilations.

In the most loving way possible, this album is kind of a mess. There isn't much in the way of a musical through-line that connects anything. This is the most "collection of tracks" Skrillex project up to this point (aside from Leaving, I suppose). That doesn't necessarily make it bad though. Luckily, even the weakest songs on here aren't any worse than what I'd call purely mid. Where it hits, it Hits. I think some of the best Skrillex drops happen in this album. Second drop in 'Try It Out', oaaaaghhh. 'Ragga Bomb'? Absolutely disguuuusting. 'All Is Fair In Love And Brostep' is one of those tracks that sounds like it shouldn't exist outside the confines of an MLG edit, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't hard. I do still think that the title track should've been the opener though (R.I.P. Fatman Scoop ).

This album is probably most interesting when it strays away from the more typical brostep sound. Which is funny because that was one of the big complaints I saw when it came out. You can see the refinement in production skills more clearly on the bass-centric or more hybrid trap style tracks. There's very clear rhythmic focus in tracks like 'Stranger' and the bass is just massive. Same with 'Dirty Vibe' which was one of my favourite tracks when I was younger (ignoring Diplo, fuck you Diplo). That song honestly so good I didn't even notice half of it was in Korean when I first heard it. 'Doompy Poomp' (which I didn't know had a really good music video, also the unexpected #JeSuisCharlie in the description???) is such a fun and goofy song that you can't help but love it. Unlike 'Coast Is Clear' which is fun but has Chance The Rapper. 'Fire Away' is a nice enough closer and while I don't find it super interesting, I could never hate on a Sonny vocal track.

Looking back, Recess is equal parts Skrillex album and cultural artifact. I was in 7th grade when this came out which was when I got my first turntable and started delving into the sounds of the 80s through my dad's old record collection. I mean really into the 80s. Enough that a teacher at my school who wasn't even my own gave me records from her collection as a parting gift that year. I still listened to this album when it came out and liked it well enough but Skrillex and brostep were very slowly starting to move into my rear view. This album was almost like its own parting gift in that sense, I just didn't realize it at the time.


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!

[RAW_]

Finding out about this album's release was a huge deal for me. It was essentially shadow-dropped with little warning, and was Skrillex's debut album. In hindsight it was insane that Sonny was able to cause such a massive paradigm shift in the realms of both electronic and popular music years before actually dropping a full-length project.

The making of "All is Fair in Love and Brostep" is really funny. It started out as a demo/dj tool played in a mix from 2013 then known with the working title "This Much Power". Fast forward a few months and another brostep artist by the name of Zomboy drops the song "Terror Squad", which people thought contained similarities to the then unreleased Skrillex track. Sonny takes notice of this, and eventually ends up incorporating elements from Terror Squad into the track, even poking fun at Zomboy's producer tag (It's Fucking Zomboy). This sounds like it would be the start of some big beef, but it really wasn't. Both of them were just having a bit of fun, and they would eventually collaborate on a remix of Ragga Bomb together. "All is Fair" is an awesome track btw. Typical brostep shenanigans with some cool verses from the Ragga Twins.

The title track is a fun one. Fatman Scoop adds so much to the track. Greatest hypeman to ever do it. Love the horns on this one too.

"Stranger" is a weird little track. Kinda housey before the second half turns more of a trap ordeal. I remember this track played in the background in a scene from that one kinda ass YA movie "Divergent".

"Try it Out" is the track thats most like what you'd expect from Skrillex at this point in his career. Perfect example of "If it ain't broke don't fix it". This shit is one of the hardest Skrillex tracks ever and it has only the second best drop on the entire album.

"Coast is Clear" is basically just a Chance the Rapper song, which isn't bad considering this is pre-Big Day (back when he was still good). I'm flattered Chance, but I don't wanna fuck bro.

"Dirty Vibe" is awesome! Diplo and Skrillex should make a whole album together, it would be so fire!!!! INCREDIBLY SUBTLE FORESHADOWING

Ragga Bomb contains what I believe to be the single greatest drop in Skrillex's entire catalog. Play this at a nursing home and everybody dying, even the nurses.

I mean this with absolutely no irony or exaggeration: "Doompy Poomp" is a top 5 Skrillex song of all time. It is so weird and unlike anything he had ever made up to this point. It's such a wild cacophony of sounds and voices from the cartoony to the nightmarish. I can't even pinpoint what genre this kind of thing is but I adore the everloving hell out of it.

"Fuck That" is another lowkey housey track. I don't have anything else to say besides that, its just fine.

"Ease My Mind" is basically the "Summit" or the "With You, Friends" of this album. I don't think it quite reaches the emotional heights of those tracks, but it does come very very close. Some cathartic drops on this one for sure.

"Fire Away" is another Burial-like dubstep track akin to the title track from the Leaving EP, but this one is much better. Its always a treat to hear some Sonny vocals on a track (and I guess also Kid Harpoon sings here too but whatever).

As far as the whole album is concerned, Recess very much is a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" kind of record. Most of what Sonny does on here demonstrates success in his experimentation. Its pretty clear that, between this and Leaving, Sonny was tired of just being "the dubstep guy" and wanted to try and move away from that. Will he succeed? Find out next time on Skrillex Ball Z.

[RAW_]

This has got to be one of the most 2014 albums to ever exist.

Wholeheartedly agree with this description. To add to that, there used to be a tie-in app for this that would tease songs from this album before it came out. Remember when everybody was jumping on the app bandwagon? Now thats a 2014 thing if I've ever heard one (ok it was more of an early 2010s thing in general instead of specifically 2014 but you get it).

[gauze_]

okay so ill admit right now that this here was the last thing by skrillex i ever gave attention to when i was younger. i never really paid attention to or cared for singles by any artist as a kid, even though i was mostly only selecting singles from the albums and eps i listened to anyway LOL. my point being after this album, skrillex moved to only releasing singles for a while, and also just moved into a sound i didnt care for as much. mid 2010s edm and like festival trap and all that just didnt appeal to me as much the massive crazy walls of sound that brostep hurls at the listener. that being said, like usual, ive never heard the album in full until this listen for skrillex book club. ive heard a lot of these songs before through various means though. try it out was my favorite as a kid and songs like doompy poomp i went back to within the past couple years because i wanted to know what i missed out on. but i still until now had never heard the album recess by skrillex, in full, from front to back, in a single listen. before i go through my thoughts i as usual have a small anecdote to add. normally i listen to these through soundcloud despite not having soundcloud premium because its kind of just easy for me even if i have to refresh every couple tracks to avoid an ad. i considered doing it for this but decided i should do it on youtube where i dont get ads so i can have a proper full listening experience to this one. i still checked the soundcloud page because why not and as usual the tags for the page do not disappoint me. its all just the names of the artists involved in all caps with every single word being its own tag, like "#KILL #THE #NOISE" but my favorite is that chance the rapper is on this album and skrillex misspelled his name in the tags LMFAO. and then because you cant reuse words in the tags it also skips the "the" in his name so chance the rapper in the tags is just "#CHANGE #RAPPER" and thats really funny to me. if youre curious you can check it out here. even more interestingly though is that his tumblr is still up even if inactive. super fun to scroll this and see all these old posts wow.

okay music. this album is super varied. the first 2 tracks both bang crazy. all is fair in love and brostep is loud. its in your face. its the exact opener youre looking for on an album like this. i forgot i listened to recess (the title track) as much as i did when i was younger but listening to it again i remembered wow yeah i loved this one and it still hits. its definitely not my favorite but its hard to act like it isnt fun as hell.

theres a lot of different vibes going on in this album and while thats a good thing, i can definitely say that some of them didnt quite hit for me as much. some of the calmer tracks just dont do it for me. stranger is fiiine. dutch house is chill i dont hate it but this track doesnt quite hit for me and sticks out like a sore thumb. ive said for a while that doompy poomp is an intensely underrated song in skrillexs discography and i will continue to stand by that. hes never done anything like this before it and still hasnt since. theres no way to tell if hell ever return to a sound like this but if he surprise drops an ep of tracks like this you can bet your ass im buying a cd. i honestly like fuck that less than the others in this sort of vein because stranger was able to serve as almost an interlude of a lower energy track in between the heaters of recess and try it out, but fuck that cant even properly serve that purpose because doompy poomp was right before it. i feel like you probably could remove fuck that from the tracklist of this album and it would still progress and feel the same? fire away is a good choice for a closer though. its a cute track but i dont have much to say beyond that.

all of the other tracks are all good and fun. any of these louder or crazier tracks i can definitely say i like. try it out was my favorite as a kid and maybe its the nostalgia talking but its definitely still up there on the list now that ive heard the whole album. i remember it sounding different as kid but i think thats a mix of just not really listening to it for a decade as well as the speakers on my ipod touch probably not doing the song many favors. still so fire though try it out i love you so dearly. id never heard coast is clear ever in my life before this listen so i was very surprised by it sounding like this?? chance the rapper on a dnb track is crazy but it works and it works soooo well wow. incredibly pleasant surprise of a song and i think personal top 3 on this album. dirty vibe is unfortunately a banger. diplo i hate you but you know how to make bangers sometimes. im not sure what to say about ragga bomb that hasnt been said either here in this thread or just by anyone really. its such an unbelievable banger. and ease my mind is also pretty fine i dont have much to say beyond that. the vocal chops during the drops are pretty fun but i wish there was more of that. probably my least favorite of these more high energy selections.

over all this album was a fun experience. i saw someone call this album basically a skrillex greatest hits comp and i can sort of agree but also sort of cant. it simultaneously has some of his best tracks and some of his worst up until this point in his career so its hard to really call it a "greatest hits" compilations when maybe 40% of the album are ACTUALLY his greatest hits. the 40% makes this album worth a listen though so who knows for sure

best track: ragga bomb
worst track: fuck that

[hprara]

Remember when everybody was jumping on the app bandwagon? Now thats a 2014 thing if I've ever heard one (ok it was more of an early 2010s thing in general instead of specifically 2014 but you get it).

financing my car using the Skrillex™ app, sponsored by Wealthsimple

[bepmp3]

'Doompy Poomp' (which I didn't know had a really good music video, also the unexpected #JeSuisCharlie in the description???)

i just went through the music videos of this era and each one got at least one unexpected thing going on. like in the final minute of the ragga bomb video there is a lightsaber battle all of a sudden?

and WHY DOES THE WU TANG ALBUM SHOW UP IN THE FUCK THAT VIDEO??

[bepmp3]

first off the teaser video for the album is fucking awesome. it's like a Most Hype Moments compilation for the album. think i said this back when i talked about NMIS but album teaser/sampler videos like this are so fun and it should be brought back, and this one in particular has so much effort and craft put into it. i gotta say this album dropped around the time emojis were right at the tail end of its peak aesthetically. it peaked in coolness at, say, Oneohtrix Point Never's "Boring Angel" music video then after that it's a slippery slope until we land at Emoji Movie.

anyways we're finally getting into the albums!!! skrillex had enough with dropping mega-successful eps that redefined entire genres and landscapes of electronic music and decided to drop a fucking debut album for once. took a little bit longer than it should. i stopped really caring about skrillex around the time Recess dropped and now, after giving it multiple full listens (my first was actually last year before the book club even started), i'd say in hindsight it's a mixed bag tho a lot of skrillex's full lengths from here on out are characteristic for being mixed bags, some more than others. skrillex has always turned out to be not really that much of an "albums" artist imo, in the matter that his albums always feel like a "collection of singles" or "collection of songs that were made for playing live (QFF being the prime example but we'll get to that)". it's why i love NMIS so much because it feels way much more like an album than a 6-track EP.

fucking talk about the songs already. "All is Fair in Love and Brostep" is such a memorable and fun title especially if you know the context behind it. it's skrillex literally flexing all of his brostep powers at full force, maybe as a send off to prime brostep era. got the chance to listen to the original "This Much Power" demo and holy shit the drop is so much harder?? like it's skrillex at his most maximalist and intricate. (shoutout the tiny Voltage sample. ) the title track is probably one of my absolute favorites on here and infinitely replayable. Fatman Scoop and the frontman of Passion Pit is such a weird feature combo but their performances are both extremely catchy and addicting. good enough to warrant a whole remix EP.

Stranger has that extremely loud and high pitched mosquito-ass drop that i can't help but think he derived from diplo at this time. skrillex is so friends-centric that i theorize that his sound really changes throughout his career depending on the people he was hanging around with. first he was in his noisia era, then his diplo era, then his fred again era and now currently his bladee/drain gang era (the good ending imo).

the only way i can describe Coast is Clear with famous wife man is that i feel about it the same way i feel about the young thug track on Jamie xx In Colour. i'm just trying to listen to some electronic beats why are you asking me if i want to fuck chance no chance i do NOT want to fuck.

idk why, probably because i only got to sorta know this album before the book club, but Dirty Vibe and Fuck That occupy the same space in my brain for some reason. like they're the same song. maybe it's something about the similar use of low-pitched vocal chops. anyways if there's anything i well remember from Recess it's the DIR-D-D-DIR-VI-DIR- D - D - DIRTEDIRTEDIR DIRTEVI DIRTY drop. i think there was some funny soundclown edits of it back in the day.

Ragga Bomb's drop would absolutely fucking decimate a victorian child. probably the closest we've ever gotten to a skrillex drop being harsh noise levels of aggressive. honestly since we're on this i would love to see everyone make a Top 5 Skrillex Drops list once the whole book club is over.

ok ok now i got to finally talk about Doompy Poomp. I <3 DOOMPY POOMP. it's geniunely such a weird, unique, standout track in skrillex's entire discography where he tries to do something that's so out of his league, barely even fitting into any genre, but still absolutely sticks the landing. love to see him dive head first on the glitcher and wonkier side of his sound. i appreciate its inclusion in this album specifically because it fits the whole alien theme so well. the song was originally teased with this really awesome tie-in site promoting a clothing collab and it's really well worth checking out even if this specific archive crawl i got is only half-preserved, like damn i didn't know skrillex was into 2010's net art like that.

in the week of listening to this album for some reason my mind keeps circling back to the “ooooOOOOHH DEEJAY” in Ease My Mind and that's really all i gotta say about that track. Fire Away is an alright closer, it has good lyrics and good vocal chopping, and it has skrillex singing! a little bit. but i don't really care about it too much instrumentally. DO NOT SAY BURIAL DO NOT SAY BURIAL.

did you notice that i skipped over Try It Out (Neon Mix)? no you didn't! yeah honestly i got nothing to say about it and expect that to happen a lot more with these following albums. especially if we do Jack Ü because i only got 2 things tops to say on the papers. i guess i always thought the "OK!" in Try It Out was sampled from "Mercy" by G.O.O.D. Music? but that was just me back then being a huge dumb idiot.

anyways, Recess. very mixed-but-mostly-good album that obv didn't live up to the monumental hype coming off those first four EPs and in hindsight never would have. thus we start the album-centric side of his discog. the road starts to get a little rockier but hey we’ll get too FUCK U SKRILLEX and it’ll all be worth it.

fav: Doompy Poomp / Recess
least fav: Coast is Clear