Holly Herndon grew up in Tennessee where she learned guitar and piano and was very involved in choral music performance. Herndon cites a school trip to Berlin at 16 as her first, life-changing encounter with electronic music; the event led her to becoming involved in computer music. She moved to Berlin at 18 and spent several years immersed in the club scene, working at Cookies, playing in a band named Electrocute, and taking contra bass lessons. She returned to the US to do a Masters in Electronic Music & Recording Media at Mills College, and is currently studying composition as a PhD student at Stanford.

Car (Thirdsex, 2011), Herndon’s first release, was a car-specific composition released on cassette in an edition of 102. Her debut album, Movement, came out on RVNG INTL, the New York label that also houses Julia Holter and Blondes on their roster. Herndon has collaborated with artists and theorists from Hieroglyphic Being to Iranian philosopher Reza Nagarestani.