Bay Area producer Holly Herndon’s name often appears next to a list of her conservatory work. It’s easy to put too much stock in academia, but the illustrious Mills College, from which Herndon earned her master’s degree, is no ordinary alma mater. A quick scan of its alumni and faculty shows luminaries like Laurie Anderson, Steve Reich, and Terry Riley, and while her Movement LP recalls little of their work, it similarly bridges complex processes with blunt accessibility.
The album is a diverse but brief collection, underlined by the artist’s manipulation of vocals using Max/MSP. Herndon’s compositions are so precise, it’s tempting to attempt a review with similar brevity. It’s not that Movement isn’t an immaculately studied selection, but its crisp design really speaks for itself, and there is little, if anything, buried in the mix. That said, Herndon’s explorations are frequently unsettling in their tenseness. The opening “Terminal” moves from slicing washes of static (naturally, created from a voice) into a muscular arsenal of grim drones, with flickers of clipped vocals sequenced sporadically on top. The modified inhalation/exhalation of “Breathe,” fittingly placed as a kind of centerpiece, is intimately intense, as each gasp seems to pull the listener closer toward some kind of climax. As it’s the sole feature of the track, however, one is not able to glean any context.
Although she supplies two pieces that might be termed interludes, the two dance tracks are really the album’s respites; on these, Herndon merges her vocal experiments with traditional tropes, to dramatic effect. On “Fade,” her vocal is chopped to match a propulsive bass line and viciously jacking drum patterns, while the title track finds compressed cries sharing space with squirmy acid lines. Movement is an imposing debut, at least in the sense that Herndon’s mastery of her laptop is on full display. It remains extremely visceral even at its most abstract, but its conciseness more than justifies the weight of its ideas, and its sheer clarity of purpose is rare.
