When the world shut down in 2020, Teneil Throssell was thrown into disarray. Her life almost entirely revolved around the throbbing strobe lights of her breathless DJ sets, yet she now found herself stewing at home dealing with the isolation of lockdown. Having already released a number of EPs under her pseudonym HAAi, Throssell’s natural instinct was to fully focus on production for the first time in years.
Over an 18-month period, Throssell went on a journey of self-discovery, coming out the other end with a refreshingly vibrant sound and new-found appreciation for collaboration. Far removed from her previously dense, club heavy EPs, HAAi’s debut album Baby, We’re Ascending, sees collaborations with spoken word poet Kai-Isaiah Jamal, ambient kingpin Jon Hopkins and Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, with further input from Mute engineer Francine Perry.
Was there a point when you moved from Australia to London to focus on a career in music?
“Yes, but it wasn’t for dance music. When I moved I was playing in a psyche band and my life was more focused on electric guitars than electronic music. It was about 12 years ago that I made the change – when The Horrors were still really big and guitar music was on the verge of fusing with electronica again. I just wanted to be part of a bigger and more open-minded scene.”
At what point did you begin to transcend into dance music?
“I’d been collecting records for some time and had started to become more interested
