96. Porter Robinson

Porter Robinson

From the outside, it seems American Porter Robinson is something of an overnight sensation. "People tend to assume that I've been doing this for a short time, when in reality, I've bee...



 

Style: Electro everything
Best known for: My productions.
Tune of 2011: Avicii 'Levels'
Breakthrough DJ/Producer of 2011: Madeon

What's the future of DJing? More DJs and a more competitive environment.
Favourite app? FL Studio Mobile. It allows me to take down musical ideas on the road.
Discovery of the year? Pendleton Ward's show Adventure Time. Legendary...
Rediscovery of the year? Pam Pero 'Supadisco'. I love the second drop with the bit-crushed sine waves - it's so modern.
Awkward Moment? Hahaha, accidentally playing my intro out to the mains over Chris Lake's set at Audiotistic while sound checking backstage.
Style or substance? Substance! It becomes more true every day: the most successful people are the people who truly have merit.
Pet Hate? Anti-pop elitism drives me crazy; the knee-jerk opposition to anything popular is so destructive.

From the outside, it seems American Porter Robinson is something of an overnight sensation.
"People tend to assume that I've been doing this for a short time, when in reality, I've been involved in electronic music since I was 12," says the 19-year-old confidently. And he's a right to be confident, given that in the last 12 months he's managed to finish school, DJ around the world and write new music just about simultaneously.
"Writing the 'Spitfire' EP was the highlight of 2011 for me. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than writing exactly the music that I love," says the boy of a year that also included a hook-up with one of the world's hottest dubstep acts, Skrillex.
"He heard my remix of 'Seek Bromance' and loved it. Chatting online turned into doing a couple shows together, and then a couple shows turned into a couple tours and so on."

Despite how manic a year it's surely been for Porter, he's still had time to mature musically, evolving from an electro-banger addict into a cross-genre specialist who prefers to mix as fast as he can.
"I went from playing full tracks to mixing very quickly," he enthuses, "usually no more than a minute and 30 seconds of every song. What's exciting to me is constantly changing."
Having turned in official remixes for Lady Gaga and Avicii, warmed up for Tiësto, David Guetta and Deadmau5 and with releases on labels like Ministry Of Sound already under his belt in just 12 months, it seems that this is just the beginning… KRISTAN J CARYL