Holly Herndon

Herndon quite masterfully stitches the past, present and the future into a seamless, wondrous whole.

Holly Herndon – who needs the bespoke AI when the humans make a show this good?

Big screen visuals, also processed with AI, added to the mix of real and unnervingly fake. But it was clear one concert thrill would be much harder for machines to replicate: the joy of an audience dancing as one.

There’s little doubt we’re on the cusp of a new technological era and Herndon is very much in the vanguard of artists exploring how it can be used to push music in interesting directions.

Holly Herndon wanders onstage at the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, casually assuming her position behind a laptop. “Hello Brighton”, she types, the words appearing above her on a huge screen. She smiles and waves. The crowd laughs, tickled by this sweet subversion of the classic rock show opening

Holly Herndon and her excellent new LP, Platform, challenge us in many ways, producing soundscapes created from snippets of her voice paired with noises such as breaking glass or someone punching away at a keyboard.

The words “nice to be here” flashed across the screen in real time though it wasn’t Herndon who was typing them.