Product Review

Holly Herndon has become a leading light in contemporary alternative and electronic music by fearlessly experimenting within the outer reaches of dance music and pop songwriting structures. A galvanizing statement, Platform cements Herndon’s reputation as a unique musician with a singular voice. Born in Tennessee, but reared on music abroad, Herndon broke out from her formative years in Berlin’s minimal techno scene to repatriate to San Francisco, where she currently lives and studies as a doctoral candidate at Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). Herndon’s debut album Movement, released in 2012, showcased Herndon’s fascination with trance and the disjunctive sampling techniques pioneered by avant-garde composition. Offering what Herndon describes as “a rupture, a paradisic gesture”, Platform is an optimistic breakthrough for Herndon, an appeal for progress, and a step toward new ways to love.