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From the sterile chill of metallic beats to the warmth of her own voice, HAAi builds a world where machines breathe and emotions hum beneath the circuitry. HUMANiSE isn’t built for instant gratification. It asks for patience, but rewards it with depth, mystery, and moments of pure release.
London-based, Australian-born producer HAAi has never been one for the easy route. With HUMANiSE, her latest release on Mute Records, she doubles down on that ethos: this is not an album that hands itself over on first listen. It’s bold, uncompromising, and, let’s be honest, demanding. You need patience to let its intent seep through. But if you give it that time, if you allow yourself to absorb rather than consume, you’ll find yourself drawn into HAAi’s strange, luminous world.
At first, the record feels almost clinical. The beats are sharp-edged, the synths metallic, the atmosphere sterile in a way that recalls the industrial chill of early Depeche Mode. It’s music that can feel like it was built in a lab, engineered rather than performed. But then HAAi’s voice cuts through – warm, vulnerable, and human. That balance is the album’s secret weapon: the vocals soften the machinery, wrapping the cold surfaces in a subtle glow.
As HAAi herself explains: “Throughout the album, I kept thinking about a machine with a human heart… It took a long time to get there, it’s such a vulnerable thing to do, but for this album, it was important for me to allow this ‘human heart’ to be front and centre.” That tension between circuitry and soul is exactly what makes HUMANiSE resonate.
HUMANiSE doesn’t rush. Tracks often unfold gradually, with long intros that build tension before opening into something immersive, even hypnotic. There’s a sense of being led through a story. One that’s slightly mysterious, never fully explained, but deeply felt. The patience required is part of the point: this is music that resists the swipe-and-skip culture of streaming. It asks you to sit with it, to let it breathe.
Both “Humanise” and “Satelite” stand out as the album’s defining peaks. Where “Humanise” unfurls with a hypnotic pull, layering tension and atmosphere until it locks you into its orbit, “Satelite” offers the opposite: immediate, danceable, and irresistibly memorable. Together they showcase HAAi’s dual strength crafting slow-burning journeys that reward patience, while also delivering moments of pure, unfiltered pleasure. These tracks crystallize the album’s core idea: mechanical precision fused seamlessly with human warmth.
Throughout, HUMANiSE channels that paradox: electronic and industrial, yet always with soul. It’s music that can feel alien, but never alienating. The echoes of early synth pioneers are there, but HAAi pushes them into her own territory, one where the machine doesn’t erase humanity but amplifies it.
HUMANiSE is not easy listening, nor does it want to be. It’s a daring work that rewards patience with depth, mystery, and moments of real beauty. HAAi has built a world that feels both mechanical and alive – a machine with a heart, beating steadily beneath the surface.
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