HAAi Releases DIGITiSE, the Club Twin of HUMANiSE

A year almost to the day after an album about staying human, HAAi has released its louder twin. DIGITiSE, the Australian-born producer and DJ's third studio album, came out on Mute on 9 October 2026, almost exactly twelve months after HUMANiSE arrived on the same label on 10 October 2025. In the label's release notes HAAi says that "DIGITiSE holds the hand of HUMANiSE and walks it to the club", and that is a fair summary of what the ten tracks do.

The release is a statement of intent as much as an album. The sequel is not a remix package or a deluxe edition with three bonus edits. It is a full record that takes the same theme, what it means to be human in a digital world, and moves it from headphones to the dancefloor.

What is on DIGITiSE?

The album runs to ten tracks. It opens with a long intro called "RE-HUMANiSE" and closes with "Talking Walls". In between sit full-length tracks such as "Ignition", the title track, "THANK U" and "I Wanna Feel Like Someone", plus two short interludes, "Printerlude" and "Depth Perception", and a track called "HUMANiSE Radio" that points straight back at the predecessor.

The guest list is built around voices rather than big-name producers. Echonomist features on "Ignition", which DJ Mag describes as uplifting, free-flowing breaks. Pat Alvarez appears on the title track. "Talking Walls" brings in Skybreak and Cantoalegre, a children's choir from Medellín in Colombia. The release notes also name ILĀ, James Massiah and Kaiden Ford among the contributors.

According to the release notes, the music was shaped by HAAi's all-night DJ sets. That detail matters, because it explains the shape of the record. Long sets reward patience: intros that take their time, peaks that are earned, and interludes that let a room breathe. DIGITiSE copies that rhythm instead of stacking ten singles back to back.

How is it different from HUMANiSE?

HUMANiSE was an inward-looking record. HAAi dedicated it to the trans and queer community and its allies, and it featured Jon Hopkins, the poet James Massiah and TRANS VOICES, the UK's first professional trans+ choir. Its theme was the risk of AI and screens pulling people apart, and its answer was community.

HAAi has called DIGITiSE the "bigger, ravey sibling" of that record, and the first reviews agree. DJ Mag put it neatly: where HUMANiSE looked inward, the new collection "calls out to the dancefloor". musicOMH, which gave the album four out of five, notes that it is built more on repetitive beats than on songs, and that it was recorded quickly. Clash scored it 8/10 and called it "an excellent return from the club maverick".

The reviews do not split into camps. They describe the same thing from different angles: the themes stay, the tempo and the scale go up.

Why the companion-album idea is worth watching

Electronic artists have long had a problem with the album format. A record built for home listening often sits awkwardly in a DJ set, and a run of club tools rarely holds together as an album. Many producers solve this by keeping the two worlds apart: albums for the press cycle, EPs and edits for the clubs.

HAAi has taken a different route and released both halves of the idea as separate records, a year apart, on the same label. Fans who came in through the quieter record get a reason to go out. DJs who skipped it get eight tracks beyond the interludes that they can actually play. And the theme of the project gets a second life instead of fading after one album cycle.

It is also a quietly pointed answer to the debate about AI in music. While much of the industry argues about generated tracks and cloned voices, HAAi's two albums keep putting real voices in the foreground: a trans+ choir on the first, a children's choir from Medellín on the second. If you want the practical side of that debate, our explainer on AI vocals and voice cloning covers what producers are actually dealing with.

From Phonox resident to Mute album artist

HAAi is the project of Teneil Throssell, who grew up in Karratha, Western Australia. After years in rock bands, Throssell moved to the UK with the psychedelic rock duo Dark Bells and only started DJing after the band split.

The breakthrough came behind the decks. From late 2016, HAAi held a two-year residency at the London club Phonox, and HAAi's BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix was named Essential Mix of the Year for 2018. HAAi sits on a short list of winners alongside Helena Hauff, Josey Rebelle, Sherelle and Elkka, a run we traced in our piece on the Essential Mixes that changed dance music.

Mute released the EP Systems Up, Windows Down in November 2019, followed by the debut album Baby, We're Ascending in May 2022. HAAi has also worked with Fred again.. and Jon Hopkins. The step from resident to album artist shows up clearly in DIGITiSE: it sounds like a record by someone who knows exactly what a room needs at 4 a.m.

What it means for DJs

For DJs, the practical question is simple: does it work in a set? The reviews suggest the album gets harder as it goes. musicOMH writes that "all hell breaks loose" on "Technology" and "I Wanna Feel Like Someone". The release notes say the latter "nods to those peak time moments", and HAAi calls "Talking Walls" "one to hug your mates to at the festival". The two short interludes, "Printerlude" and "Depth Perception", are album glue rather than club tools. In our view, the best way into the record for a set is to treat it like the all-night sets it came from: let "Ignition" and its breaks build the room, and save the second half for the peak. Our guide on how to build a DJ set explains how to plan that kind of energy curve.

The bottom line

DIGITiSE is not a surprise left turn. It is the second half of a plan: one album that asks what technology does to people, one that answers it with a full room. Released on 9 October 2026, a year after its sibling, it shows that the electronic album can still be more than a pile of singles, if the artist lets the dancefloor have a say.