Porter Robinson is the dance music prodigy who almost never was. “If it wasn’t for the internet I wouldn’t even be writing music,” explains the 22-year-old producer and DJ who was signed by Skrillex and touring with Tiesto while still only 18. “I probably would’ve grown up loving baseball, and gone to the university, and lived this totally mundane life.” You can trace the change of course back to his 12-year-old obsession with the game Dance Dance Revolution, which he was reacquainted with during the filming in New York of Barbara Anastacio’s candid short film. “I never really considered it to be much about dancing,  more timing and execution, meter and rhythm,” he says. “It made me to listen to electronic music that really inspired me: after that I remember going on Limewire and hearing Daft Punk’s Discovery, which is now my favorite album of all time.” After Robinson conquered the Beatport charts in 2010, he put his plans for college in his home of North Carolina on hold and started to tour as a DJ. He holds a monthly residency at the Marquee in Las Vegas, considered the epicenter of EDM’s propensity for crowd-pleasing remixes and credit-zapping drinks bills—a hedonistic environment that Robinson is trying to escape from with his hugely anticipated second album Worlds, out this week (the soaring tracks “Sad Machine” and “Flicker” are showcased here). “The kids who listened to EDM are getting bored of how homogenized it’s become, but they still want electronic music,” he says. “I stopped Djing and tried to write the most personal, sincere thing that I could, about fictional places, escapism, and fantasy.”

Worlds is out now on Astralwerks. Porter Robinson sets off on a three-month tour of the US, Europe and Australia on August 29.