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DJ Mag Top100 DJs
40
Porter Robinson
56

He might only just be out of school, and he might be seen as one of the figureheads of the new EDM craze sweeping America, but that's not stopping Porter Robinson from evolving his own way. Already he is keen to move on from the quick mixing, hands-in-the-air style sets he was doing in 2011, replacing them with a more nuanced mixing style and more genuinely emotional strain of music.

"I get more pleasure mixing in obscure, weirder references like Aphex Twin," he says on the phone from home during a rare period of down time in a year of near-constant touring.

"People don't complain and it's fun for me, it's way better than smashing their heads every few seconds." As well as DJing on a number of his own tours around the States and further afield ("my base level now is about four hours' sleep a night"), including a trip to Hull to record a live Essential Mix for Radio 1, Porter's also unleashed 'Language', a glossy electro anthem that topped innumerable charts. It was the first sign of a new sonic direction for the star. "My focus now is beauty and making you feel something. The whole intense, high-energy rage thing is easy and boring. What I'm doing right now has nothing to do with dubstep." One thing Porter does share with his US dubstep brethren is a penchant for big shows.

"On the recent Language Tour we took a VJ and a light director, but I wanted something classy and powerful so I handpicked Tumblr-style net art to be displayed. It's a weird hipster aesthetic I'm super fond of." The next months will see Porter head out on tour again, this time with pal and peer Zedd, and will also see the release of his debut album, a body of work he describes as "more focused on goosebumps and the euphoric". It seems the whole world awaits