1001 Records

Lore & Background

The story of 1001 Records is inseparable from the story of Skrillex's rise. After the seismic impact of his early dubstep anthems, Sonny Moore and his longtime collaborator Jules Pederson (Cirkut) saw an opportunity to build something beyond a single artist's catalog. They wanted a label that felt like a workshop—a place where producers could iterate, fail, and refine without corporate gatekeepers dictating tempo or drop placement. The number '1001' evokes a sense of infinite possibility, a nod to the idea that there is always one more idea, one more frequency to explore.

The label's early roster reflected the specific subculture of the 2011–2014 bass-music scene: aggressive, genre-fluid, and deeply rooted in both hip-hop and electronic traditions. Zeds Dead brought a hip-hop-inflected energy, Porter Robinson channeled melodic futurism, and Datsik carried the raw, distorted weight of the dubstep peak. Together they created a sonic ecosystem far more diverse than the 'EDM' umbrella of the era suggested.

As the industry shifted—festivals grew, streaming changed distribution, and the dubstep wave evolved into a broader bass-music landscape—1001 Records adapted. It became less about a single genre and more about a philosophy: artists retain creative ownership, the label supports rather than dictates, and the music is allowed to be strange, loud, and personal. That philosophy is most visible in Skrillex's own output, where each album under the 1001 banner pushed further into uncharted territory.

In Their Own Story

The studio smelled like cold coffee and solder. It was 2 a.m. on a Tuesday in October, and the only light came from the amber glow of a hardware synth and the blue pulse of a monitor showing a waveform that looked like a jagged mountain range. Cirkut leaned back in his chair, headphones around his neck, watching Sonny tweak a sub-bass layer for the fourteenth time. 'It's not hitting in the chest yet,' Sonny muttered, more to himself than to anyone. Cirkut grinned. 'You've been saying that for two hours.' The room hummed at 40 hertz. Outside, Los Angeles was silent, but in here, the air itself was vibrating. This was the sound of an album being born—not in a boardroom, not in a marketing deck, but in a room where two friends argued over a sine wave until it became something that could make a stadium of strangers feel like they were inside a single, enormous heartbeat.

Reader's Guide

Skrillex co-founded 1001 Records in 2011 alongside Cirkut, making the label both his creative home and his primary release vehicle. While his earliest hits like 'Bangarang' appeared on his own Owsla imprint, it was under the 1001 banner that his full studio albums took shape: Recess (2014), Quest for Fire (2016), and Farewell (2021). Each record marked a distinct chapter—from the polished, genre-blending confidence of Recess to the cinematic, orchestral ambitions of Quest for Fire, and finally the raw, intimate bass explorations of Farewell.

The label's role in his career was fundamentally one of creative sovereignty. 1001 Records gave Skrillex the structural freedom to release music on his own timeline, collaborate with artists across hip-hop, rock, and electronic without label interference, and treat each album as a cohesive artistic statement rather than a collection of singles. There was no A&R pressure to chase a festival-ready drop; the rhythm was set by the music itself.

This autonomy shaped his sound in measurable ways. Freed from the expectation of repeating a formula, Skrillex could pivot from the aggressive dubstep of his early career into the layered, hip-hop-influenced production of Recess, then into the sweeping, almost film-score territory of Quest for Fire. 1001 Records was not just a distribution channel—it was the institutional framework that made those pivots possible, turning a single artist's restless curiosity into a sustained, evolving body of work.

Did You Know?

• 1001 Records was co-founded by Skrillex and Cirkut, who had been producing and collaborating together before the label's official launch.
• The label's roster has spanned multiple subgenres of electronic music, from aggressive dubstep to melodic future-bass to hip-hop-inflected bass, reflecting a philosophy of genre fluidity over rigid categorization.
• Skrillex's album 'Recess' (2014) featured collaborations with artists from outside the electronic scene, a creative freedom that 1001 Records' independent structure made possible.
• The label's name '1001' is often interpreted by fans as a reference to infinite creative possibility—always one more idea, one more frequency to chase.