FILTH FM's Top Tune of 2025: Innocence - Taiki Nulight

Our tune of 2025 is Innocence 2025, Taiki Nulight's rework of Nero's Innocence. It was always going to be. Here's why.

For a couple of years now Taiki Nulight, Hamdi and the crew around them have been building a new dubstep sound. It isn't new so much as remembered. It pulls on the deep, wobbly, bass-first thing you used to hear from DJ Fresh, Trolley Snatcha, Benga and Coki. What's changed is the refinement. The processing is different now. The low end is deeper and thicker, the mix has more room in it, and there's a trap influence in the drums that has crisped the whole thing up. Deep, heavy, rolling dub was the origin point of this music, and this lot have taken it somewhere it never quite got to the first time round.

Then there's the tune they picked. Innocence came out in April 2010 on Chase & Status's MTA Records and became the lead single from Welcome Reality. It was one of the biggest tunes of that whole era, and the video was iconic: a cyberpunk anime cut-up, lifted almost entirely from Cyber City Oedo 808, that looked like nothing else dubstep was putting out. Nero showed a Daft Punk level of creative direction, a whole visual world built around a song and a team. No dubstep duo had really done that before.

So remixing Innocence is one hell of a shoe to fill. Everyone who was there remembers exactly how it goes. Taiki Nulight took it on, and Nero didn't just sign off on it, they put their name on it. Skrillex and Nero themselves were playing it out across the UK and US from the end of 2024, months before it dropped in March.

And he delivered. This is arguably one of the best dubstep remixes ever made. It keeps the vocal everyone knows and strips the maximalist bass out from under it, and what goes back in is heavier than anything the original had. It's simple. It sounds effortless. But there's a weight to it the original never had, and a sub to it the original never had, and that bass-heavy rolling pressure is exactly the sound this whole scene has been building towards. It gives the tune new life in a way that lands with everyone who remembers the 2010 version, and hits just as hard for anyone hearing it for the first time.

Taiki said it himself: "I grew up listening to Innocence. For NERO to put their name on this is the ultimate blessing." You can hear that in it. It's a tribute that ended up outgrowing the thing it pays tribute to.

That's why it's our best track of 2025.

Innocence 2025, official video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7bQ013FOJg
The 2010 original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk_nISAyA94
Limited 12" on Chaos, original on the flip: https://shop.chaoslabel.com/products/nero-x-taiki-nulight-innocence-2025-12-single-limited-press