The thing about Skrillex is his music is often easy—you don't have to think about a song like "Bangarang" or "KILL EVERYBODY" too hard, because all you have to do is move your body and wait for the earth-shattering drop. But nobody said that just because a piece of music wasn't particularly hard to listen to or enjoy makes it bad: often, the best music is that which grabs you by the lapels and force you to engage with it on a visceral level, whether it's the wailings of Michael Gira, the wordplay of vintage Weezy or yes, the immediacy of a good dubstep drop.Though it's easy to write him off as a one-trick pony, an ex-emo interloper in the realm of electronic music, Skrillex is anything but, and he's got an active interest in proving it to you. Hence "Leaving," his newest track from a (presumably) upcoming EP of the same name. Released on his YouTube page with little in the way of PR or fanfare, "Leaving" finds Skrillex mining lithe, nuanced territory more in line with producers like Burial or Four Tet than the caverns of sound that he foregrounded on his earliest work. While this is great news for those of us who enjoy complicated, serious production, the reactions from the die-hards are, uh, mixed. Regardless, it's really rewarding to see a musician as beloved for doing a very specific thing such as Skrillex eschewing the ground where he hit paydirt once and instead following his own muse. There's no telling whether "Leaving" is a harbinger of a completely new style or not, but regardless it's a welcome turn from a talented artist who's rewarding himself by stretching his style a bit.
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