Holly Herndon has become a defining presence in 21st century music, as theorist and practitioner — not just using AI and other emerging tech, but making it and its repercussions comprehensible to a broad audience. Her work is experimental in the truest sense: testing, iterating, developing practices based on results. And that very public experiment started here with a debut album that arrived sounding like nothing else on earth. Its deconstruction of avant-garde and pop, of electronic and “real,” of what a voice (both literal and figurative) is, all still have power to startle, even though she may have since gone on to more complex and advanced experiments. It was a milestone release for RVNG Intl., too, making ultra clear that they weren’t just releasing leftfield dance / ambient and archival material, but were pushing into the future, too.