RL Grime, Skrillex, and What So Not's New Single Is a Burst of Delirious Joy at Just the Right Time

The main innovation of the loose association of producers who became festival-fillers and chart toppers in the wake of the vague movement known to marketers as "EDM" was the idea that pop music could use a little delayed gratification. They built saccharine sugar rushes around the conceit that good things come to those who wait, that with a little patience, the dopamine rush that listeners and festivalgoers had come to crave would come at just the right time. That conceit's implicit in even in the title of "Waiting," the new collaboration between RL Grime, Skrillex, and What So Not.

On their own, the three producers have become some of the most adept at this sort of practiced restraint, holding back the delirious joy until just the right moment, and "Waiting" is no exception. After the trio teased the collaboration back in September, there's been a slow build around the track, first as What So Not dropped it during a festival set, then RL Grime himself including a snippet in his annual Halloween mix. Things creeped toward a climax until yesterday, when RL Grime let slip news that you could call a hotline to hear the new track in full.

Given these three producers understanding of the dynamics, it's no real surprise that the structure of the track operates similarly. It opens with dizzy ambience and blurry trance synths that sound a little bit like Rustie's underwater explorations, before blistering skyward through chanted vocals, a wonderfully elastic bass line and jungly drum samples—all signifiers of ecstasy and abandon after the woozy exposition. It crests right when you need it to, a smile amidst cosmic chaos, euphoria right when you needed it.

Listen to "Waiting" here, right now.