HAAi returns with her bold and brilliant second album, HUMANiSE, exploring the sweet spot between machine-led dystopia and emotion-filled utopia. In all of her work, Teneil has always sought to conquer new frontiers in electronic music, and on the new album, she’s drilling deeper into the grid. HUMANiSE reckons with what it is to be human in an increasingly digital world, as AI threatens to eclipse everything and our screens separate us from each other. The result is an ambitious and thrilling epic: embodying a sonic step up, and a distinct evolution from her 2022 debut, Baby, We’re Ascending. Voices – both real and digitised – play a huge part on HUMANiSE, alongside ideas of community and a sense of belonging. She has returned to work with friends including Jon Hopkins, Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip, singer Obi Franky, rapper KAM-BU, artist Kaiden Ford, and poet James Massiah, as well as two choirs: Trans Voices with choir leader ILĀ and a gospel choir led by Wendi Rose. Having spent years behind the decks, HAAi also brings her own voice to the forefront in a powerful shift toward vulnerability and self-expression. Her vocals, stunningly delicate, give a newfound dimension to her kinetic productions. The album’s concept became clear while HAAi was in the studio with Hopkins. The pair were playing with a vocal harmonizer plug-in with a function called ‘Humanize’. For HAAi, a light went off: “The idea of something completely synthetic trying to make an actual person sound more human is crazy,” she says. HAAi blurs these extremes throughout the album: digitising voices, layering them to hazy effect, and even using an AI text-to-speech to generate her voice. But, ultimately, she concludes that experience and memory – what makes us truly human – cannot be replaced. From the euphoric opener ‘Satellite’, to BBC Radio 6 Music A-listed track ‘Can’t Stand To Lose’, and genre-smashing cuts like ‘Shapeshift’, the album is filled with exhilarating sonic twists and deeply personal lyrics. HUMANiSE is a powerful, emotionally charged leap forward: a celebration of community, self-expression and humanity.
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