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Tech

When Flesh and Sweat Meet Future-Music: Holly Herndon, "Movement"

We’re lucky enough to have Herndon at Motherboard’s relaunch party tonight, along with the RZA, Large Professor, Mas Ysa, Driphouse, and Forma. Nuts, eh?

The human voice is seldom properly fucked with in music. Some reverb and delay, sure, but full-on creative computer processing is still a musical frontier. (At least within electronic music; conversely, super-pop studio technique is on another processing planet.) Figure it has something to do with the human voice being so much a rejection of technology: its biological flaws and uniquenesses don’t hold up to algorithms quite as well as, say, a synth frequency or even a guitar tone. However, sound artist/techno producer Holly Herndon is focused largely on processed voice (via MAX/MSP programming) on her new acid opus Movement and the result is goddamn brilliant. The just-out video above and all of its skin, muscle, and sweat gets at this general idea in genius fashion.

We’re lucky enough to have Herndon at Motherboard’s relaunch party tonight, along with the RZA, Large Professor, Mas Ysa, Driphouse, and Forma. Nuts, eh? Also: installations by Babycastles (arcades), Justin Warner (food scientist), Ryder Ripps (gifs), Dr Laser (lasers), and Dub Stuy. And, yeah, a new website.

Reach this writer at michaelb@motherboard.tv.