Electronic music fans have received a hard-learned lesson in media preservation after Nest HQ, the defunct media platform owned by Skrillex’s OWSLA label, removed all of its original music from SoundCloud.
As the Internet Archive battles existential legal challenges and repositories of our favorite websites remain at risk, preservationists around the world have been alerting the public that no media existing entirely online is safe, and backups are essential.
That’s hit particularly close to home with fans of the deeply influential Nest HQ brand, whose official SoundCloud account has been purged of original music. Clicking on old links that were once live or articles with uploaded tracks triggers the message: “This track was not found. Maybe it has been removed.”
It’s unclear at the time of this writing whether or not the removals are permanent. Their ambiguous nature has also puzzled longtime fans, who were left wondering if Nest HQ deleted the music intentionally or if their SoundCloud subscription simply lapsed.
While tragic, it’s unsurprising news. Months ago, Nest HQ’s YouTube channel was not only scrubbed of its uploads, but deleted entirely. This news largely flew under the radar as many fans also noticed the YouTube deletion this week, despite a July post on the r/Skrillex subreddit that has since been removed by its moderators.
Moreover, the editorial staff of the official Nest HQ blog was laid off a few years ago without advance notice. The website that contained all their hard work was then taken offline, leaving no record of their work—save for indiscriminate stories cached by the Internet Archive—with no recourse to get the content back.
Skrillex has not addressed the deleted Nest HQ uploads.