I'm assuming this applies to most people, but my music taste runs with what's appropriate for the season. Holly Herndon, who went to Mills College and hung out in Berlin for awhile, makes perfect winter music. It's electronic and often sterile, but there's a raggedness to it that adds depth as well. The first time I listened to Movement all the way through was the first day I remember it being actually cold this fall. I was walking around the Upper West Side, trying to figure out what I was listening to. There are multiple moments here in which Herndon uses a gasp as musical instrument—it's the kind of gasp that happens when you're sleeping and wake yourself up because you've forgotten to breathe for a second. It's unsettling and tense, and as she adds effects and layers to it on "Breathe," it becomes something not unlike an ocean's ebb and flow turned digital. It is moments like that that make Movement the compelling, difficult and darkly pretty album that it is. As suited for the dancefloor (seriously, "Fade" is great) as it is for personal listening as we transition from golden fall into bleak, grey winter. Movement is out November 12th on RVNG.
Stream: Holly Herndon, Movement (via NPR)
