Read Our Convo With Composer and Musician Holly Herndon on The Future Of Dance Music

Photograph by Maria Louceiro. 

Many people are quick to label San Francisco based musician and composer Holly Herndon a “futuristic” artist, but the truth of the matter is that she may actually more present than many other artists that are working in electronic music genre. Present in the sense of her intentions and her use of the tools of our time. It is the music of the future imagined ten or fifteen years ago when composers were still primitively discovering and harnessing the power that computers can offer in terms of the construction of music. Moreover, Herndon is coming to the electronic music genre with a scholarly background and a deep understanding about the processes of music – after leaving Tennessee for the Berlin club scene where she immersed herself in the sounds of that culture, she received her degree from Mills College in Oakland. She studied under the likes of John Bischoff, James Fei, Maggi Payne, and Fred Frith. This year, Herndon saw the release of Platorm on the 4AD label. It is her second official album and it is being lauded by critics across the board. Autre was lucky enough to catch up with Herndon for a convo – she discusses the state of club music, her early experiences as a choir girl growing up the South, and her blurring of the line between academia and pop music. Click here to read the full conversation.