Holly Herndon will headline two further shows later this year; one in her adopted home city of Berlin, followed in the Autumn by a debut performance at London’s Barbican.  Tickets for both shows go on sale this Friday at 10AM local time. 

April
27th - Donau Festival, Krems, Austria [TICKETS]

May
16th - Red Bull Music Festival, New York, NY [TICKETS]
18th - Teragram Ballroom, Los Angeles CA, US [TICKETS]
20th - August Hall, San Francisco CA, US [TICKETS]
22nd  - Thalia Hall, Chicago IL, US [TICKETS]

June
14th - Volksbühne, Berlin, Germany

July
19th - Sonar By Day - SonarHall, Barcelona, Spain [TICKETS]
20th - Manchester International Festival, Manchester, UK [TICKETS]

October
16th - The Barbican, London, UK

Holly’s third full-length album PROTO (out 10 May) isn’t about A.I., but much of it was created in collaboration with her own A.I. ‘baby’, Spawn. 

+ You can pre-order on black vinyl, extremely limited clear vinyl, and CD via 4AD here +
+ You can pre-save, and pre-order, on all platforms here +

For the album, she assembled a contemporary ensemble of vocalists, developers and an inhuman intelligence housed in a DIY souped-up gaming PC to create a record that encompasses live vocal processing and timeless folk singing, and places an emphasis on alien song craft and new forms of communion. 

PROTO makes reference to what Holly refers to as the protocol era, where rapidly surfacing ideological battles over the future of A.I. protocols, centralised and decentralised internet protocols, and personal and political protocols compel us to ask ourselves who are we,what are we, what do we stand for, and what are we heading towards? 

A ghostly transmission inspired by ideas of eternal love through mind uploading, latest single ‘Eternal’ follows the 2018 release of Holly and Jlin’s collaborative song ‘Godmother (feat. Spawn)’.  Punctuated by grandiose orchestration and the voices of her Berlin-based vocal ensemble, the accompanying video for ‘Eternal’ was constructed from footage processed from the perspective of an intelligent machine, analysing and searching for a face, yearning for a connection.

Listen to ‘Eternal’ here.

“There’s a pervasive narrative of technology as dehumanizing,” says Holly.  “We stand in contrast to that. It’s not like we want to run away; we’re very much running towards it, but on our terms. Choosing to work with an ensemble of humans is part of our protocol. I don’t want to live in a world in which humans are automated off stage. I want an A.I. to be raised to appreciate and interact with that beauty”.

Since her arrival in 2012, Holly has successfully mined the edges of electronic and Avant Garde pop and emerged with a dynamic and disruptive canon of her own, all while studying for her soon-to-be-completed PhD at Stanford University, researching machine learning and music.  Her LP Platform closed out 2015 by gracing year-end lists from Pitchfork, The Guardian, NME, and The Wire.  In the aftermath, Radiohead hand-picked her to open up their European tour. 

Just as Platform forewarned of the manipulative personal and political impacts of prying social media platforms long before popular acceptance, PROTO is a euphoric and principled statement setting the shape of things to come.

“Shaping the future of A.I.” – CNN
“Ambitious.” – FADER
“Herndon’s machine-R&B masterpiece is a total sensory assault..” – The Guardian on ‘Eternal’
“Multilayered, glitchy beatboxing, human input dispensed with inhuman timing.” – NY Times on ‘Godmother’