HAAi

Two years of Saturdays at Phonox

In October 2016, Phonox in Brixton committed to a Saturday residency for a DJ who was still new to the London nightlife scene. HAAi occupied that booth for two years and, as the cycle closed, BBC Radio 1 broadcast her Essential Mix, which was chosen as the best of 2018. The leap from the Brixton club to the airwaves of Radio 1 established a recognizable signature: elastic tempo sets, a crossover of techno, house, and electro, and a dancefloor narrative closer to a psychedelic tale than a predictable peak-time set.

From Karratha to Dalston vinyl

She grew up in Karratha, in Western Australia, and spent her teenage years in Perth, singing and playing guitar before entering the Sydney rock and post-punk circuit. She arrived in the UK as one half of the psychedelic rock duo Dark Bells. After the group split, the club filled the void: shifts at the Ridley Road Market Bar in Dalston, highlife, afrobeat, Turkish funk, and soul vinyls, and the Coconut Beats parties, which led her to Rinse FM and Worldwide FM. An all-night set by Andrew Weatherall and a session by Ben Klock at Berghain confirmed to her that the booth could tell a story with the same logic as a band.

Mute, the voice, and the club as a community

In 2018, she released the EP Motorik Voodoo Bush Doof Musik. Mute released Systems Up, Windows Down in 2019 and, a year later, Put Your Head Above The Parakeets. The debut Baby, We're Ascending (May 27, 2022) opened up production to Jon Hopkins, Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip, Obi Franky, and the poet Kai-Isaiah Jamal. In 2023, her DJ-Kicks installment for !K7 arrived, along with the single Lights Out with Fred again.. and Romy. HUMANiSE, her second album (October 10, 2025), places voices and choirs—TRANS VOICES, KAM-BU, James Massiah, Kaiden Ford—at the center of a question: what it means to be human in an increasingly digital world. To present it, she filmed a full performance of the album at Drumsheds. Its dancefloor companion, DIGITiSE (October 9, 2026), was born from all-night sessions and pushes bass, frequencies, and motorik rhythms toward the club.

In 2024, she played more than one hundred dates across five continents. She has performed at Coachella, Movement, Glastonbury, Sónar, Body Movements, and Pacha Ibiza, and has remixed Fred again.., Kylie Minogue, and Nina Simone. That same year, she launched UNiSON, her London night of surprise back-to-backs and emerging talent. Based in Hackney, she occupies a place of her own: the DJ who treats electronic music as a narrative and the dancefloor as an inclusive space.