The relationship between humans and the technology we have developed is under greater scrutiny than ever before. In the latter part of 2025, HAAi released her second album HUMANiSE to examine the link, “as AI threatens to eclipse everything and our screens separate us from each other”.

This quickly recorded sequel is a themed follow-up, a “bigger, ravey sibling”, with DIGITiSE given the task of holding the hand of its predecessor and “walking it into a club”. Whereas Humanise had a very satisfying ebb and flow to its tempo choices, and was more song based, the sequel gets cracking with the repetitive beats and shakes its stuff on the dancefloor.

In the build-ups and breakdowns the music shimmers with promise, the images on the horizons dancing in the air, rather like the feathery theme tune to Lena Durham’s Industry series. Yet whereas that music never fully realised its positive energy, here we cut loose with increasing abandon, the euphoria of full-blown club rhythms hitting us from four minutes in. “On the dancefloor together, we breathe,” is the telling lyric.

For this is an album preaching the very best in community spirit, something AI would not do so readily. To bolster that feeling there is a well-chosen guest list, the names at the door of the club bringing their positivity as the sweat bounces off the walls. The title track drops the furthest, Pat Alvarez helping join the musical dots for a floor of heaving bodies. Ironically the track Technology has the most primal, kinetic energy, beats chattering as the music motors forward and back, side to side. I Wanna Feel Like Someone matches it, speed of the essence as the riffs ricochet from the walls. If you are listening to the album start to finish, as you should, these two are the tracks where all hell breaks loose, HUMANiSE Radio capitalising on the mayhem with musical strobes aplenty.

Elsewhere, HAAi harnesses on occasion the textural highs of M83, the poise and passion of Romy, the chopped-up beats and scraped riffs of Overmono. All are delivered with a wide vocal variety, from clinical android visions to the joyous sounds of Cantoalegre, a children’s choir from Medellín, Colombia.

The energy of this album is something to behold, though naturally it is a nighttime album, one for losing all your cares to. As a final thought, HAAi’s name could be interpreted as “HA – Ai”. A distinctive moniker for sure – and in this instance, a subtle laugh at technology’s inability to be 100% human. HAAi presents us with an invigorating mix of the two, her music reaching for and frequently meeting the skies beyond the club.