Porter Robinson Unveils New Track 'Musician'

Acclaimed vocalist, songwriter and producer Porter Robinson unveils a new track, "Musician," today-listen here and watch the visualizer below. The track is from Nurture, Robinson's first album in seven years, out April 23 via Mom+Pop-pre-order the album and new merch here.

"'Musician' was one of the very last songs written for Nurture. The song is meant to feel like a celebration, like I'm reveling in the joy of newfound inspiration," Porter says. "If the rest of Nurture is about me trying to find hope for the future, 'Musician' is like a celebration of that hope materializing. It was one of the last songs that I wrote for the album, and it's honestly a celebration of the album itself. That's where the title comes from. It's like, 'Alright, I've found my footing, and I know I can really do this now.' And I just tried to throw all of my rules away and have as much fun as possible. Ironically enough, this is the least sad song on the album, but this is the song that makes me cry. It's the fun one. I just sound so happy on that song."

"Musician" follows previous offerings "Look At The Sky"-which is climbing at alternative radio and FADER said "might be the best song Porter Robinson's ever written" and Entertainment Weekly praised as "victory pop at its finest;" "Mirror," which The FADER called a "musical panacea" in its Best Songs of 2020 list; "Get Your Wish," praised by Pitchfork as "a joyful return for Robinson, one that expands the scope of his music while bringing him back down to earth;" and "Something Comforting," which finds Robinson in a moment of "melancholic introspection" swaying "between heavily layered production and subdued instrumentation," according to UPROXX.

Nurture spans a highly challenging period in Porter's life. Following his 2014 debut Worlds, which found Porter headlining festivals worldwide and being heralded as a wunderkind of a burgeoning new style of electronic music, Porter began to experience severe anxiety under the pressure of his success to a degree that was creatively crippling, smothered by his own self-criticism and high expectations. A vicious cycle began to take hold-the more Porter struggled to write, the more his sense of self unraveled, leaving him in a state of despair, which was exacerbated by his brother's diagnosis with a rare and aggressive cancer.

Through much personal work, Porter began to claw himself out of his creative slump little by little. He began to experiment with a completely new sound inspired by early-aughts rave music, which turned into critically acclaimed side project Virtual Self. After some time, he finally returned to the piano and his own voice as the basis for the next evolution in his sound. Nurture is the resulting document of this period, a testament to hope and persistence in the face of the negative voices in one's own head. It is a hopeful, intimate album that champions the power of vulnerability while paying homage to the struggles that pushed him to grow. This iteration of Porter's sound stands starkly in contrast to his prior productions as it blends live instruments, digital synths, artificially pitched vocals, chopped samples and cozy ambience.

Nurture will be available in a number of physical formats. The Deluxe Vinyl Box Set includes opaque white vinyl and deluxe gatefold jacket with boxset-exclusive alternate album art, six 7" singles with box set-exclusive alternate album art and a Nurture hardcover artbook plus complete lyric booklet. The Standard Vinyl includes the opaque white vinyl discs and a matte finish gatefold jacket as well as the Nurture lyric booklet, while the Standard Retail Vinyl features clear vinyl discs with matte finish gatefold jacket as well as the Nurture lyric booklet. All physical orders come with a digital download of the album.

In May of 2020, Robinson put on the Secret Sky streaming festival, marking his only performance of the year. The 14-hour livestream event, which Robinson created as a way to give his favorite musicians a platform to perform, featured sets by G Jones, Jai Wolf, Kizuna AI, Madeon, San Holo, A. G. Cook, Anamanaguchi and others. The livestream was broadcasted via a digital auditorium built with state-of-the-art technology and attracted more than 4 million viewers, with the Youtube chat peaking at 8,813 chats per second during Robinson's performance of the previously unheard "Look at the Sky."

At age 18, the North Carolina-based producer and songwriter burst onto the scene in 2010 with a complex, bombastic brand of electro-house beats. His debut album Worlds was released four years later to widespread critical and commercial success, included RIAA Gold single "Sad Machine", and established Robinson as a mainstay of electronic pop and a deft crafter of "gorgeous textures, contemplative storytelling and remarkably sharp melodies," as The New York Times remarked.

Following the major success of his debut album, Robinson released the RIAA Gold single "Shelter" with Madeon in 2016, followed by a Shelter Live Tour spanning 43 dates and four continents. The following year, in an attempt to display his growing interest in interdisciplinary art and nostalgia for Y2K trance, Robinson began releasing music under a new alias, Virtual Self, which lead to his first Grammy nomination for the BBC Radio 1 hit single "Ghost Voices."

His success eventually gave Robinson the chance to create his own music festival in partnership with Coachella promoter Goldenvoice. Second Sky, a two-day event launched in 2019, sold out all 30,000 tickets in a single day and is planned to return again to the San Francisco Bay Area soon.

Listen here:

Photo Credit: Dan Regan

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