Kid A Breaks Up With the NSA in Holly Herndon’s “Home”

"Dear NSA: It’s over. Love, Holly Herndon." That's how producer and electro-vocal wiz Holly Herndon sets up her new song and video, "Home," which was inspired by her codependent relationship with her laptop ("It is my instrument, memory, and window to most people that I love") and the subsequent violation of that relationship at the hands of NSA surveillance.

"It is a love song for prying eyes (an agent / a critic), and also a break up song with the devices with which I shared a naive relationship," she said in the video's press release. "There is something dramatic, teenage and vulnerable to this sensation — our relationships with these interconnected devices are still so young, so naive.”

Fittingly, the song is cold and sparse, all ambient and robotic — but there's a human feel from her feathery vocals and clattering percussion reminiscent of some of The Knife's excursions on Shaking the Habitual (pour one out). It's like Kid A singing a breakup song.

The video was directed by Dutch design studio Metahaven and features a "data rain" of NSA symbols partially obscuring Herndon's face throughout. Check out the visual up top.