41
FOR once this year, Porter Robinson has dialled back
his busy DJ schedule, but only so he can lock himself
away and work on his debut album.
“I’ve been writing my ?rst album over the course of
the last year-and-a-half,” he enthuses. “That meant
doing mostly weekend shows and then working
nonstop on music through the week.”
Style-wise, Porter admits to evolving this year, saying
the focus is on being beautiful, emotional and vastsounding.
“The part of me that loves high-energy and loudness
didn’t go away, but it’s just not my ?rst priority right
now. I wanted this record to sound not only beautiful,
but huge and impactful. There’s a vintage sensibility
to the thing, too. Clean and pretty is a little played-out
I think. I wanted a somewhat more lo-? inspired twist
on beauty.”
As well as the release of the album, Porter has been
working on a new live show for 2014 which “is feeling
way more honest and personal to me than anything
I’ve done before. I’m dying for everyone to hear it”.
KRISTAN J CARYL
?01
PORTER ROBINSON
From: USA. Style: EDM. Best known for: “‘Language’.” Tune of
2013: “Chvrches ‘The Mother We Share’.” Breakthrough DJ/producer
of 2013: “Mat Zo, even though he’s been doing it for ages.”
42
THE last 12 months have been busy but fun, Ferry
tells DJ Mag. He’s performed two of his big eighthour marathon Corsten’s Countdown shows — one
in New York and one in Dublin — as well as touring
all over the world with his club shows and his own
Full On Ferry concept.
“During the summer, we had over 10 Full On shows
at Eden in Ibiza,” he says. “Every Sunday I would
return with another line-up and play a lot of backto-back sets, which was great fun!”
Ferry, of course, remains one of the top Dutch DJs
— and he reveals that he’s just set up a new project
with top unicorn-slaying German trance DJ Markus
Schulz — the New World Punx. “It is basically me
and Markus playing back-to-back and producing
tracks together,” Ferry says. “Before the New World
Punx we had a show and we were like, ‘Why don’t we
just play the whole thing back-to-back?’ We had so
much fun that we made a project out of it. The name
is based on two big tracks for us: ‘The New World’
and ‘Punk’.”
Ferry has also been releasing a lot of new music
this year. “Some of the biggest tracks of the past 12
months are ‘Kudawudashuda’, ‘Black Light’, ‘F the
Bull$h1t’ and ‘Diss!’ We also released a new remix
package of ‘Rock Your Body Rock’ with remixes by
Arty and Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike.” CARL LOBEN
?20
FERRY CORSTEN
From: Holland. Style: “Everything between house and
trance.” Best known for: “My distinctive productions.” Tune
of 2013: “Ferry Corsten ‘Diss!’” Breakthrough DJ/producer of
2013: “Maarten Vorwerk.”
084 djmag.com
Have DJs’ fees got out of hand? “The fees are only a re?ection of
the demand for these shows.” Has dance music become the new
pop? “There’s a lot of sides to pop, and I think to say ‘dance music
is the new pop’ would be a huge, very incomplete generalisation.” If you could be any animal what would you be? “Shouts
to my dog Lainey.” Should DJs do ‘heart hands’? “It’s not my
thing, but Goddamn — it seems like a pretty innocuous thing to
get all worked up over.” Do DJs have a duty to speak out about
drugs? “I don’t ‘speak out’ about them because it’s not really
my world — I got into electronic music through Japanese video
games a