When singer Sonny Moore left the (dis)comforts of his post-hardcore band From First to Last for the disorienting, electronic sub-bass boom of dubstep, it might have seemed incongruous. Trading raging guitars for laptops, you know, seems so lame.
But in the new guise of Skrillex, Moore picked up on the aggressive end of the British-born dubstep sound, well in evidence at a sold-out Electric Factory Saturday night.
His has been a remarkable rise. Forsaking the slower, moody grooves of standard dubstep, Skrillex chose ragged, dense bass lines and shrill keyboards and made them worthy of the screamo-punk he left behind. He brought pure energy and raw, powering speed. He tossed in wild recognizable samples and teetering, screechy noise.
Skrillex also elevated the subtle melodic swing often lost in U.K. dubstep productions and with it elevated himself to fame with U.S. audiences long unacquainted with radical electronic dance music. With post-house prankster Deadmau5 as his mentor and innovative DJs, sequencers, and samplers such as Starkey and Justice along, Skrillex made electronic music friendly for rockers who once dared not pump a fist to programmed beats. Not only did he land on a Spin cover (still on stands); the 23-year-old Angeleno also found himself selling out dates on his new Mothership Tour.
Skrillex, a long-haired gent with thick-rimmed glasses and black-and-red track suit, hit the jagged stage set (maximized with flat space for his geometrically graphic light show) and blew kisses to the wiggling kids armed with fistfuls of glow sticks. Bouncing like a Super Ball while hunkered over his equipment, he spruced up the grooves to rasta classics such as Chaka Demus & Pliers' "Murder She Wrote," speeding and lacing them with additional wonk for a surreal stuttering effect - hyperreggae, if you will. He did likewise with his mixes for hard electro tracks from Knife Party and Benny Benassi. Yet he reserved the most dynamic bass and yelping string sounds for stately stuff of his own: the garrulous howl of "Syndicate," the digital doom of "Ruffneck," and the chantingly anthemic "Rock 'N' Roll (Will Take You to the Mountain)" and "Kill EVERYBODY."
Worth the hype.