Nurture

Forget preconceptions and misconceptions about electronic music—I’ve got plenty of my own. What really irks me is how I’ve failed to give Nurture the attention it deserves. But this, tersely done album, as fleeting and delicate as spring water slipping through my fingers, somehow holds me together. So please, Nurture, keep holding me together, keep me sane.

Nurture 

Porter Robinson

Mom+Pop; 2021 

Score: 7.7

Genre: Electronic  

It’s been a long seven years since Porter Robinson dropped Worlds, a debut that transported us into his digital Eden of swooning synths and cinematic daydreams. But the path from then to now wasn’t exactly a sunlit highway. Enter Nurture, his sophomore album—a self-help seminar disguised as euphoric pop, ambient murmurs, and existential musings. This time, Robinson isn’t just escaping the world; he’s learning to find the beauty in it, glitches and all.

Robinson has always been a bit of an escapist. Worlds championed the idea that art could be a portal to better realities, whether through head-spinning drops or lush synthetic landscapes. Even his 2016 Madeon collab, Shelter, told the story of a father crafting a digital haven for his daughter as reality disintegrated. It was sentimental, sure, but who among us hasn’t daydreamed about ducking out of reality’s mess?  

But Nurture is less about avoiding reality and more about coming to terms with it—therapy session meets dance party. The tagline sums it up perfectly: “Everything we need is already here.” Robinson isn’t building a shiny new world this time; he’s realizing the one we’re in has enough sparkle if you look closely.

Kicking off with an ambient piano piece that feels like a deep breath, the album pivots sharply into “Look at the Sky,” a triumphant anthem of survival and optimism. “I’ll be alive next year,” Robinson declares, as if daring the universe to test him. It’s a quiet flex, a musical sticky note reminding himself (and us) to keep going.

This mix of optimism and doubt weaves through Nurture. In “Musician,” he wrestles with the paradox of creation during tough times, bouncing between exhaustion and exhilaration: “I just can’t stop, I’m sorry,” he confesses, before countering, “I can feel a new day dawning.” He’s a guy straddling hope and fear, and he’s not afraid to make us feel both.

The album’s structure mirrors this emotional tug-of-war. Ambient tracks like “Lifelike” set the mood, while pieces like “Unfold” (a collab with Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs) dive into dreamy shoegaze territory. Tracks like “dullscythe” pull us into jittery collages of sound, keeping us on edge. And then there are the big, buoyant moments—“Get Your Wish,” “Something Comforting”—like beams of light cutting through a cloudy sky. Even at its most jubilant, though, Nurture carries a sense of fleetingness, as if Robinson knows these highs can slip through his fingers.

One of Nurture’s quirkiest traits is Robinson’s fondness for messing with his own voice. He pitch-shifts, distorts, and warps it into something uncanny, layering in what he calls “corruption and artificiality.” It’s a bold move that adds tension to songs about beauty and hope, reminding us that perfection is overrated. By the time we reach the closing track, “Trying to Feel Alive,” he’s figured out that the struggle is the point. “Maybe I don’t really need to feel satisfied,” he sings. “Maybe it’s a gift that I spend all this time just trying to feel alive.”

If Worlds was Robinson’s escape hatch, Nurture is his love letter to the messy, imperfect reality we all share. Sometimes euphoric, sometimes restless, but always reaching for something bigger, it’s an album that suggests that maybe—just maybe—the joy is in the trying.