Chris Lake and Skrillex’s documented creative relationship stretches from the 2017 HOWSLA project to “LA NOCHE,” their long-awaited 2025 Black Book single with Anita B Queen, and its 2026 continuation “La Noche 2” on Skrillex’s SOMA. The connection did not begin as a conventional duo record. It began with Lake helping OWSLA build a house-music compilation at a moment when Skrillex’s label was more closely associated with bass music.
That makes the history more interesting than a simple collaborators list. HOWSLA was about curation and scene translation; “LA NOCHE” was about finally making a record together. The eight-year gap between those two points also tracks a larger change in Lake’s career: from the early Black Book reset into a period when his own house records had become a major part of the North American festival landscape.
2017: HOWSLA WAS THE FIRST MAJOR INTERSECTION
OWSLA released HOWSLA in May 2017 as a house-focused compilation. Contemporary coverage from Mixmag and Pitchfork identified Chris Lake as a central curator alongside Skrillex.
The premise was direct: bring four-to-the-floor house music into an OWSLA context without making it sound like a generic survey of the genre. Lake supplied “Operator (Ring Ring)” and “I Want You”; Skrillex and Habstrakt contributed “Chicken Soup.” The compilation also included producers such as Alex Metric, Wiwek, Autoerotique and others working at the harder edge of house.
For Lake, HOWSLA arrived at exactly the right point in his own trajectory. Black Book Records had just given him a new outlet for “Operator,” while “I Want You” was released through OWSLA in March 2017. Lake was moving decisively back toward club-focused house after the larger EDM period represented in the Chris Lake songs career map.
HOWSLA WAS NOT A CHRIS LAKE/SKRILLEX DUO PROJECT
It is useful to keep the relationship precise. HOWSLA was a curated compilation and OWSLA initiative, not a named Chris Lake and Skrillex duo. Their creative overlap was in selection, direction and the way the compilation framed house music for an audience that knew OWSLA primarily through bass-heavy electronic releases.
That distinction prevents a common retrospective mistake: treating any project involving both artists as though they had already been releasing records as a pair. In 2017, Lake’s most visible direct OWSLA record was “I Want You,” while Skrillex’s contribution to the compilation was “Chicken Soup” with Habstrakt.
The relationship therefore began around a shared question—what kind of house music belonged inside the OWSLA world—rather than around a single Lake/Skrillex studio credit.
WHY HOWSLA MATTERED FOR HOUSE MUSIC IN THE OWSLA ERA
OWSLA’s audience in 2017 had been built through dubstep, bass music, electro and a broader festival-electronic ecosystem. A dedicated house compilation placed four-to-the-floor records directly inside that network rather than asking listeners to discover them through a different label culture.
Pitchfork’s review emphasized how different the result was from traditional or understated house: HOWSLA was brash, compressed and engineered for impact. That description is useful because it explains why Lake fit the project. His own modern reset was not an attempt to recreate 1990s house production literally. It was about taking club architecture—groove, low end, space—and making it work on contemporary systems.
The site’s Chris Lake genre history places HOWSLA inside that transition from broader EDM-era records into the modern house/tech-house catalog.
THE TWO CAREERS KEPT CROSSING WITHOUT FORCING A SINGLE
After HOWSLA, Lake and Skrillex remained part of overlapping dance-music networks, but the absence of an immediate collaborative single is notable. Both producers had large solo catalogs, labels, collaborations and touring schedules. There was no need to manufacture a release simply because HOWSLA had connected them publicly.
That delay is one reason the eventual 2025 single was described by Beatport as a long-overdue collaboration. By then, the context had changed considerably. Black Book was no longer a new label; it had become a substantial release and event platform. Lake had also released Chemistry, while Skrillex’s own post-2023 output had moved fluidly between club music, pop structures, bass experiments and international collaborations.
2025: LA NOCHE FINALLY PUT BOTH NAMES ON THE SAME RECORD
“LA NOCHE” was released October 3, 2025, credited to Chris Lake, Skrillex and Anita B Queen. Apple Music categorizes it as House and lists Black Book Records as the label. Beatport carries the release as Black Book catalog BB111.
Chris Lake’s official artist-channel delivery lists Lake and Skrillex as producers and programmers and credits Christopher Lake, Sonny Moore and Anita B Queen as composers. Those credits matter because Anita B Queen is not incidental to the collaboration. Her vocal and writing are part of the record’s identity and the official credit line.
DJ Mag reported that the track first circulated to fans through Skrillex’s mailing list on release day. The route fits both artists’ 2025 habits: direct fan communication, club-first records and less dependence on a conventional long-lead single campaign.
LA NOCHE IS A DIFFERENT KIND OF HOUSE RECORD FROM HOWSLA
HOWSLA asked how an OWSLA compilation could frame house. “LA NOCHE” does not need to answer that question. By 2025, both Lake and Skrillex had long histories of moving between genre categories, and the record can simply function as a house track without carrying a manifesto.
That makes the collaboration feel less like a crossover and more like convergence. Lake’s low-end economy and club arrangement meet Skrillex’s detailed editing and rhythmic unpredictability, while Anita B Queen provides the vocal center. The record sounds connected to both producers without requiring either one to imitate the other.
As with the production article elsewhere on this site, that observation is based on the released record and verified credits—not an invented reconstruction of who touched each plugin, drum or automation lane.
2026: LA NOCHE 2 MOVED THE IDEA INTO SKRILLEX’S SOMA
The collaboration did not end with the Black Book single. Apple Music lists “La Noche 2” on Skrillex’s 2026 album SOMA, released June 4. Skrillex’s official artist-channel credits again list Chris Lake and Skrillex as producers, Anita B Queen on vocals, and Lake, Skrillex and Ana Belen Kim among the writers.
The label context changed: “LA NOCHE” was a Black Book release, while “La Noche 2” appears on SOMA through OWSLA/Atlantic. That movement neatly reverses the history. The 2017 connection began inside Skrillex’s label world; the 2025 record arrived through Lake’s label; the 2026 continuation returned to a Skrillex album.
FROM CURATION TO CO-PRODUCTION
The Chris Lake/Skrillex history is therefore best understood in two phases. HOWSLA established a shared curatorial context around house music in 2017. “LA NOCHE” and “La Noche 2” established the direct production relationship years later.
That timeline also protects the specificity of both projects. HOWSLA should not be reduced to a footnote in the “LA NOCHE” story; it was a compilation with its own purpose and many artists. “LA NOCHE” should not be treated as if it had been inevitable since 2017; the delay is part of what gives the collaboration context.
For Lake, the relationship sits alongside other distinct partnerships rather than replacing them: Anti Up with Chris Lorenzo, the two 2023 records with Aluna, and Under Construction with FISHER each create a different musical result. Skrillex represents another version of that principle: a collaborator whose presence changes the record rather than merely adding a recognizable name.