Porter Robinson firmly established himself as one of electronic music’s most gifted stars with the tremendous ambition shown his debut album Worlds. A whirlwind of narrative themes and his own vivid imagination, the album was hailed upon release as one of 2014’s best efforts.

Robinson recently arrived in Australia for Stereosonic, where he would debut his live show to accompany the album. In between his shows, we brought the 22-year-old to Bondi for a few photos and a chat about his experiences as a producer. He’s articulate, intelligent and certainly has a lot to say – so much so that we decided to pick our favourite quotes and run them below. Read what Porter had to say regarding his album, the state of dance music & Kanye West:

On taking Worlds from the studio to a live show:

“I feel like with Worlds it’s supposed to evoke the feeling of stories in general. There’s not one direct narrative behind it, the album is really about the vibe of fiction and fantasy, and just beautiful escapist media. Regardless of the length of the show, all the visuals are super in theme with that. Crazy, surreal, beautiful, live landscapes. Everything is fantasy-related so I feel like I can still establish that through the music and visuals. I think the show is better suited to a longer length, but it totally works in an hour.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgKDu5pp_fU

On the fantasy lands evoked by Worlds:

“It can be so much better if you leave what it really looks like to the imagination… I think you definitely get that in the show because there are tonnes of different little universes with different styles of animation. Some of them are three-dimensional – there’s one group of friends that exist in this underwater world, you see them crossing a bridge and getting on a train. There are whales in the sky. Another one is super futuristic, some of them are mundane reality. It’s meant to evoke a broad range of different fiction.”

On EDM and ‘molly music’:

“I feel like I’ve softened my position a little bit about the whole EDM thing. I think that dance music is perfectly legitimate; in fact it’s really awesome and it’s a lot of fun. There’s so much room for sound design, and when you hear something you’ve never heard before, the novelty is so amazing.

Here’s what I need people to know: Worlds, if you try to look at it as an album of music for DJs, it’s not very exciting. But if you look at it as an album of listening music, I think it’s very exciting and quite energetic from a songwriting perspective. I needed people to not think of this as my attempt to writing the next banger, I needed people to understand that this did have some sort of narrative and this was meant to be more musical.

When I talked about my shows not being raves or ‘molly music’, my point is that Porter and Worlds is not a replacement for EDM, because they can coexist. I’m not saying that my music is supposed to be the future of dance music, because I actually think it’s completely different. Those things are both perfectly legitimate.

I think there was a point where I was starting to resent EDM, because I kept being pigeonholed into that. But as I felt myself drift away from that, and people have understood where I’m going, I was like ‘You know what? DJ shit and electronic music meant for dancing is really fun.’ I fucking love Jack U, that’s like my favourite shit right now. Skrillex and Diplo, it’s super about build-up and drops, but it’s wonky and weird and shit you’ve never heard before.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1sZ_vwqwcE

On Kanye West & Yeezus:

“I love Yeezus. I love every Kanye album. My favourite Kanye album is definitely Graduation, I know that’s a weird cut for a lot of people – for most it’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy or The College Dropout. I didn’t really grow up on rap, I grew up on electronic music. I remember the first time I heard Kanye, I was like ‘This is so good, the beats are so good!’ It reminded me of Discovery, the Daft Punk album and my favourite album ever.

And the way he talks, what he says is so memorable. It’s not even like Kanye is the most technical rapper, it’s not like he has these crazy in-rhymes – I don’t even really like that shit that much to be honest, the super backpack style is not really for me.

Kanye’s music, especially Yeezus – all those collaborations with Gesaffelstein and Daft Punk – I’ve never seen him as being this producer’s producer. I feel like there’s always somebody there working with him. It’s more so his taste, the type of beats that he chooses, his flow and the stuff he says. It’s so memorable; it just makes you feel good. It’s empowering.”