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DJ Mag Top100 DJs
55
Porter Robinson
2

Inspired as much by video games as he is the sounds of Wolfgang Gartner, it's delightful how Porter Robinson has captured the imagination of the EDM community. Unlike the hoards of mindless big room-baiting pretenders jumping on the bandwagon, his attempt to genuinely craft something creative within the mainstream electronic world, for many at least, is a sound for sore ears.

Bursting onto the electro-house scene in 2010, he later became poster boy for a progressive wave of EDM with a series of huge electro hits, coining the term 'complextro' to describe an intricate approach to constructing tunes layered with multiple hooks and melodies. 

However, it wasn't until his second artist album, 'Worlds', last year that Porter Robinson really found his unique selling point. Veering away from the dancefloor in favour of a fluorescent, textured approach closer to left-of-field pop artists like Flume and Odesza, he found himself experimenting with syncopated beats and over-saturated soundscapes washed with a saccharine, artificial sheen, in a way that was not only accessible but utterly addictive.

'Flicker' — with its video depicting an 8-bit enhanced natural world — for instance, saw him playfully chopping up a J-Pop sample though scrambled frequencies, and the result was catchy enough to storm charts, while remaining edgy enough to win over hipsters.

Robinson wears his Daft Punk influences on his sleeve, and his music is as much a digital discovery as it is a representation of the computerized world we live in — hence his magnetism to the starry-eyed youth of today. Despite largely turning his back on clubland — he's now focusing on a live show rather than DJing — his continued appearance in the poll is a reminder of the continually expanding remit of EDM culture... which can only be a good thing.

ADAM SAVILLE