Review Summary: There is a reason Skrillex has eight Grammys, and this EP is not it.
It feels strange listening back to Sonny Moore's first EP release under his Skrillex handle, now that he's become one of the best-known electronic artists of all time. Produced in mid-2010 when Moore was just 22, and released for free on his MySpace page (which in itself shows how much things have progressed), these six tracks display a seminal style that would be developed further on future releases. Indeed, less than six months later he released a sophomore EP,
Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites (on deadmau5's record label, no less) which showed far more advanced production skills. It makes sense, then, that Skrillex's subsequent releases would be the ones to grab the public's attention, as opposed to this one.
Of the tracks on this EP, the title track is probably the most interesting; despite repeating the same elements for what feels like half an hour, the drop has enough going for it to keep me listening, incorporating an acid house bassline that then gives way to the 'seizure' sounds that Skrillex has become known for. "WEEKENDS!!!" starts with some slightly cringey autotuned vocals from Sirah, before turning into a decent house track. (The vocals don't bother me too much in this case, since in EDM they're always less important than the beat.)
"F***ing Die" is the first instance of Skrillex producing dubstep. It opens with some ambient drones with a chopped vocal over the top; there is then a short buildup followed by some English dude telling us
"You can eat sh** and f***ing die!" which takes us into the drop. While it's nowhere near as crazy as the likes of "Scatta" (from the
Scary Monsters EP), it's an interesting window into where Skrillex's music would soon go. The Cooper mix essentially just takes the track and adapts it to an electro house beat; it doesn't diverge very much from the original until around the second drop, although I could live without the obnoxious square lead that occasionally pokes its head in there. "With You, Friends" rounds off the selection in a nice fashion - it incorporates much more melody than any of the other tracks, and uses just a few loops but makes an effort to vary the harmonies throughout. Oh, and the "bye-bye" right at the end is very touching.
Of course, few releases are without their share of suck, and on this EP, it comes in the form of "Do Da Oliphant". The track uses the chopped vocals from "With You, Friends", but in a much less effective way: just gluing them to a disjointed electro house beat with very little flow and being done with it. In Skrillex's favour though, it's the only track here that I can honestly say I dislike; the rest seem to work far better.
So with all that said, why haven't I rated this EP any higher? Because, like so many other free releases, it simply doesn't feel...
big enough. For all that
My Name Is Skrillex sounds unlike anything that had gone before it, its artistic vision is far too small for it to make the stadium-size impact that its successors (
Scary Monsters,
Bangarang) have made. It belies the fact that Moore is one of the most passionate, driven producers I can think of. As a foretaste of things to come it works okay, but it could never have been enough to make Skrillex world-famous.
