EDM poster-boy Porter Robinson has called the very brand of music he’s renowned for “entertainment” and not “art”, but has managed to share new EDM-esque single Lionhearted with influential BBC radio host Zane Lowe.
Lionhearted (below), which features vocals from Swedish indie outfit Urban Cone, is due out on 17th June. The track is an electro anthem with driving percussion and some strong pop hooks, and it’s taken from Robinson’s highly anticipated debut album Worlds, which is set for release on 8th August.
In a newly published interview with NME (below) Robinson says that the album marks a shift away from EDM-based music, citing what he believes to be the genre’s artistic drawbacks. “The first priority I had was I wanted [the album] to be really beautiful and emotional. That was my first goal,” Robinson says.
“In terms of throwing off some of the EDM stuff, it just came about naturally because I found that trying to shoehorn it into a danceable format was really just limiting in terms of expression.”
Robinson goes on to say that he doesn’t think DJs would like to play any of his new material, and that EDM is really just party music. “It turned out that basically all the material that I retained for the final version of the album was stuff that I don’t think a lot of DJs would ever really want to play,” he says.
“[EDM] exists to make people go crazy, and to me in a lot of ways it’s entertainment and it’s not really art,” Robinson says, before clearing the air. “I don’t think that EDM is bad or anything, I totally loved it at the time.”
Worlds will also feature guest spots from Breanne Duren of Owl City, Sean Caskey of Last Dinosaurs and Norwegian duo Lemaitre. Check out the album’s official tracklist below.
Listen: Porter Robinson – Lionhearted (feat. Urban Cone)
Watch: Porter Robinson: “EDM is entertainment, it’s not art”
Worlds Tracklist
Divinity (feat. Amy Millan)
Sad Machine
Years of War (feat. Breanne Duren and Sean Caskey)
Flicker
Fresh Static Snow
Polygon Dust (feat. Lemaitre)
Hear the Bells (feat. Imaginary Cities)
Natural Light
Lionhearted (feat. Urban Cone)
Sea Of Voices
Fellow Feeling
Goodbye To A World
