I Love: Rezz
Something I really respect in a creator is a distinct, carefully-curated aesthetic. I really adore this about EDM artists, they have really distinct opinions and taste that they can show off in their whole persona. Rezz is great at this, anyone in the scene can immediately recognize her iconography whether it’s a spiral, her LED goggles, or the cardinal black-and-red colors. Motifs of monsters and horror accoutrement cover everything from the visuals at shows, to merch, most importantly to the music itself. Even when you go to EDM events where she isn’t playing like Decadence or a show at Red Rocks you’ll immediately be able to find her fans (who are called Rezzbians).
I’m kinda a recent re-émigré to bass music, I was a big fan of Skrillex when I was a teenager and he was just starting to get popular, but I fell out of the style and I’m just now getting back into it. What I’ve found is so much of the genre spawned from his influence, high-energy, referential and generally up-tempo. Rezz is a cool change of pace because her music is slower and genres like trap or artists like Nine Inch Nails feature heavily, although much of her work would be perfectly at home in the world of Cyberpunk 2077.
My first time seeing her was for Rezz Rocks 7, it was a crazy set. This was right before Halloween so everybody was dressed up, and if there’s one thing I really love about the EDM community it’s our huge capacity for creativity (so many cute costumes!) When we went in the openers sampled her heavily, even artists like AC Slater who usually sound really different. I liked that, it’s as if the DJs were under her hypnosis! And when I looked out in the crowd before the lights came up, I saw a sea of LED goggles oscillating in the darkness. She really curates the vibe of her performances, it feels something like a ritual and a huge change of pace from other bass music sets I’ve been to.
I also think she’s got something really profound to say beyond the aesthetic. In the world today, people want to control you. They want to control what you watch, what you listen to, what you buy. Capitalism has progressed beyond the facsimile of trying to convince you to give them your hard-earned money, they now want to change our behavior to do it impulsively and automatically. Maybe Rezz’s hypnosis motifs ask us to question who is trying to control us, and whether we should let them. Maybe it’s just a fun thing to imagine, being under the control of another, to relinquish the responsibility of choice and free will, even if it’s just pretending for a few hours.
She’s a creator with a lot to say. I’ve actually read a lot of her interviews, she’s a really interesting person. She wants to have her own festival some day, she’s also overcome some of the worst insomnia I’ve ever read about, which had even gotten to the point of hallucinations. Mainly seeing a woman DJ selling out gigantic venues and headlining festivals is really inspiring, EDM has historically been a boys club in the mainstream. I also like that she’s a cool lesbian with a diverse background, Canadian citizen, Ukrainian-born, Persian by heritage.
Her music is a good place to get into bass music if you’ve tried before and found the hype to be too much, it’s also for you if, like me, you really fuck with her aesthetic and creative philosphy.