Skrillex is moving in two directions at once, and both feel big. First up, he has officially released “Thistle” via OWSLA and Atlantic after teasing it to his email subscribers just a couple days early. At the same time he has been revealed as one of the creative forces behind CONTRA, a new multidisciplinary platform and event series launching with Berlin Atonal.
The timing is not accidental. CONTRA makes its debut May 30 and 31 with a two-day takeover of Kraftwerk Berlin, bringing together more than 70 artists across music, performance, and visual art. The lineup is deep, with names like Blawan, Knock2, Bladee, BNYX, Ecco2k, Tohji x Mechatok, Crystallmess, Juliana Huxtable, Flowdan, Batu, JASSS, and more helping shape the first edition into something that feels closer to a full cultural collision than a standard festival bill.
That makes “Thistle” land even harder. The track has been floating around in sets since 2022, with Randomer, CONTRA headliner Blawan, and MC Dricka all tied into its history, and it had already built the kind of reputation that only an elusive Skrillex ID can. Now that it is finally out, it sounds exactly like the kind of record meant for a room like Kraftwerk, fast-moving, punchy, and just unhinged enough to feel dangerous in the right setting.
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