Bleep

London producer HAAi returns to Mute Records for her second LP of widescreen electronica entitled HUMANiSE. An accomplished DJ alongside her expressive and tactile productions, HAAi mostly eschews the dancefloor here in favour of more tender and cerebral electronic listening music. Using the crisis of humanity in our ever-darked digital world as a backdrop, she explores the dangers of society’s increasing dependence on digital tools like AI, suggesting that we lose more of ourselves the more we trend towards automation. Working alongside Jon Hopkins and Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip (among many others), the album’s framework and title revealed itself with the frequent use of a digital vocal tool called, you guessed it, ‘Humanize’. Brief interstitial tracks bridge things together into a concept album of sorts, but it's the impossibly lush textures of tracks like ‘Can’t Stand To Lose’ that really carry the heady weight within.