Porter Robinson
Natural Light - Commentary
""Natural Light", to me, is such an interlude. To me, it's kind of a homage - especially the intro - to the years that I spent making stuff they were calling 'IDM' back in the day... the much-maligned name for, y'know, 'Intelligent Dance Music' back then. Just lots of glitches, y'know, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, that whole- Venetian Snares, all that stuff. Yeah, I wanted- I liked a lot of those rhythms, and... just almost arbitrarily cut-up... loops and... I thought it'd be cool to have another kind of, I don't know, late-sounding, sassy, semi-soulful beat mixed with that. IDM stuff from my childhood, and... that bell mеlody. Yeah, I... the 'Bum, bum-bum-bum, bum-bum-buuum...' That's such a sad melody to mе, and when I hear it I think of, I don't know, I think of... like, guerillas or something, I don't know, there's something very kind of... not mournful, it's not grieving, it's not that kind of sadness, it's melancholic, it's like a... idle sadness to me. In fact, 'Idle Sadness' or 'Idle Longing' was a name- was a tentative song title that never actually got used because it was embarrassing. But, uh, yeah that bell melody is a little special to me. And it's meek, y'know, it's not up-front, it's shy."