Porter Robinson’s highly anticipated debut album will be called “Worlds.” This is the takeaway from a 10-hour long video posted on his website today, in which after a 30-second intro a loop begins with the album’s name flashed on screen and spoken by a robotic-sounding voice. Watch the unusual clip below:
The video concept recalls mid-20th century alien invasion, interrupted transmission-style films where an extraterrestrial force would cut off an earth-based television signal to announce a takeover. Indeed, this might be Robinson’s plan – to interrupt the regularly scheduled DJ program and invade with his own brand of electronic music.
In November, Robinson spoke with Billboard after signing a highly competitive album deal with Astralwerks, promising an album in 2014 that would not be “the next big EDM” album, but rather connect more to his original sources of inspiration.
“The thing that drew me to dance music in the first place was this Japanese video game music that I was really into,” Robinson told Billboard last year. “I’ve been producing for about 10 or 11 years and when I started to encounter DJ music the only stuff that I liked was the high-detail, guys who had real chops, people who were insanely good at the technical skill of producing. Not the most energetic, not the most exciting party music but the dudes who had real chops… a lot of that was in the electro world.”
Robinson plans to put DJing on hold this year as he focuses on the production and release of “Worlds,” though he’s not abandoning, by any means, the style dance music that made him popular.
“One thing that I still find really compelling about dance music is that the way that it’s willing to be really loud at times,” he explains, hinting at a sound that might appear on “Worlds.” “One way to really drive the emotion home is with a big bold section of the song.”
Today’s video gives fans a sense of the kind of work they can expect from Robinson in the coming year as his commitment to originality extends beyond his record and into the promotion of it as well.
“I don’t like big wishy-washy, very marketing-y campaigns where they try to use a hash tag and it doesn’t make sense,” Robinson says. “Tacky stuff is not something that I care for obviously. I’ve tried to make everything that I do feel pretty intentional.”
While a release date hasn’t been made official, sources at Astralwerks parent company UMG say not to expect “Worlds” until after the second quarter of this year.