Hachiku

A globetrotter from birth, Anika Ostendorf was born in Michigan in 1994, grew up in Germany, moved to London to study, and finally ended up in Melbourne after a year abroad. The open and experimental music scene of the Australian metropolis is a pool of unconventional ideas in which Ostendorf quickly learned to swim as Hachiku. Her debut album, ‘I’ll Probably Be Asleep’ (2020), quickly sold out and became the talk of the town artistically, turning her dreamy indie art pop into a musical kaleidoscope that suddenly makes the crisis-ridden present seem less dreary – for softies and hard-boiled types alike. Whether this is due to the quiet yet powerful understatement of her voice, the excellent guitar work, or the electronically accompanied goosebump-inducing melodies is difficult to say. The fact is, though, that her second album, ‘The Joys Of Being Pure At Heart’ (2025), also shows Hachiku to be a singer–songwriter with an idiosyncratic sense of style and the will to expand timbres and production features in every conceivable direction. If exploratory pop music can still be celebrated in the age of AI bands and streaming exploitation, then we hope it sounds just like this.