Release Roundup + Playlist: Baby Zionov, Ladi6, Voom, Proteins Of Magic, Lucky Boy^, Fèng, Brandn Shiraz + More

We're just two days into NZ Music Month / Te Marama Puoro o Aotearoa and it's already shaping up to be a biggie. To mark the occasion we're unveiling today our brand new UTR Roundup Playlist, a rolling weekly playlist keeping you in the loop with every new release we've featured on the site over the past month! Only including local tracks available on streaming platforms of course. We strongly recommend if you like what you hear, support the artists directly by going to their gigs and / or buying releases on the door or from your friendly local record store. For the full undiluted scoop of what's new and notable (eg. including Bandcamp-only releases), break the chains on the algorithm and check in right here at the end of each week.

Revisit this week's coverage of Grecco Romank, Ringlets, The Beths, Hemi Hemingway, Harry Charles and The Bemsha Swing, then scroll downwards for an abundance of new local highlights from Baby Zionov, Ladi6, Voom, Proteins of Magic, Lucky Boy^, Fèng, Brandn Shiraz, IA & Rei, Cold Ceiling, and Lola, plus info on the Michael Brown's just-launched 33 1/3 book about Eyeliner's classic vaporwave album BUY NOW.

Are you an Aotearoa artist / imprint releasing something new soon? Let us know! Send your info including links to editor@undertheradar.co.nz.

Our music community hails the first solo release in three years from Tāmaki Makaurau electronic artist and balloon player Baby Zionov! Launched with ivory-tinkling visuals by Simon Ward (watch HERE), the uplifting and hi-octane melodic goodness of 'Cirrus Homebound' floats magically like a little fluffy cloud — out now via Sunreturn. "I wanted to make the most overwhelming and gleeful thing I could. Something so surreally over-the-top joyous that it kind of physically hurts. Like all the best happy music, there’s a hint of bittersweet wistfulness at the core to bring out the flavour, like salt in a cookie."

Ladi6 unveiled synth-soul ballad 'LightBulb', a radiant new single from the Aotearoa hip-hop royal's forthcoming new fifth solo album Le Vā — go catch her touring nationwide in June and July.

There's lots of famous local faces in the video for Voom's new power-pop bop 'Crazy Feeling' directed by Frances Carter, the latest tune revealed from Buzz Moller and the gang's first studio album in nineteen years (!) Something Good Is Happening. Don't miss them touring nationwide from 23rd May onwards. "I usually try to say something clever or cryptic about our songs because I’m embarrassed by how dorky and emotional they are. But ‘Crazy Feeling’ — like most of our songs from the past two decades — is just about my lovely, gorgeous girlfriend Janey!"

Classing up the opening credits of local TV melodrama Beneath the Surface, Proteins of Magic aka Nashville-based Aotearoa multi-talent Kelly Sherrod is back with the beguiling aural rays of Angel Hieroglyphics EP, plus fantastical claymation video for 'Family'.

Unveiled a couple of weeks ago and finally featured today in the Roundup Zone, 'J.D.S' is a luminous synth-pop stunner from Tāmaki Makaurau's Lucky Boy^ aka Simeon Kavanagh-Vincent — also key member of Phoebe Rings and Princess Chelsea's band The Dream Warriors.

Fèng is the solo project of Lucy Beeler (formerly of Lttle Phnx), whose debut album under that name archive for humble stones is a slow-mo masterclass in emotionally transportive, "personal pop" dreaminess. The strictly limited edition holographic cassette edition looks beaut too.

Your favourite local rapper's favourite local rapper, Brandn Shiraz's oeuvre remains unbeatable with brooding new banger 'Youngin from Kuki II', reflecting on "his family’s migration from Rarotonga to Aotearoa" — a sequel to a track from his standout 2023 self-titled EP. Directior Esther Mauga's video unpacks this theme further to stunning effect, including footage filmed inside Shiraz's actual family home in the Cook Islands. “To me, this video honours a certain time for Pacific people in Auckland. There’s houses you might drive past every day without ever realising the rich stories, memories, and traditions that live inside them”.

Taonga pūoro collective IA and Rei help usher in NZ Music Month / Te Marama Puoro o Aotearoa with the immaculate all te reo flow of new collaborative single 'He Piko He Tuna', plus video directed by Mauhau Hodges-Tai — in which the tuna represents "resilience, endurance, and the complexities of love".

Playing a launch party at Tāmaki's Dead Witch on 24th May with compadres Chasing South and Exit Sign (grab tickets HERE), Cold Ceiling's powerhouse metal / punk riff onslaught and vocal shreds sound supremely focused on their debut album I Must Be Closer. "We wrote this one in 2023 and drilled it in Jan 2024. Our space was a corrugated iron box out in New Lynn with one window that could barely open and a shitty fan that didn’t do anything — our summer was spent in there dripping with sweat while we wrestled with the songs. On Jan 1st Matt had never screamed before".

Praised by HALFQUEEN as "an artist that has made me excited to be in this country", Aotearoa singer / producer Lola has completed the journey towards her debut Outside World EP with cinematic final ballad 'Spirits'. "This one is about grappling with the death of my father and feeling his presence around me at particular times. It’s written a bit ambiguously, speaking to the energies of people who aren’t with us physically but are still present in the world around us—in the stars, the wind in the trees".

From my own perspective, as someone who was active in the community surrounding its release at the time, Michael Brown's in-depth new 33 1/3 book on Aotearoa electronic artist Eyeliner aka Luke Rowell's (also known as Disasteradio) classic album BUY NOW (2015) feels a bit miraculous. Brown goes deep into the localised socio-geographic forces that can drive musical innovation, and how that can in-turn ripple outwards around the globe — for example, US noise rock titans Chat Pile praised the record recently as "a masterpiece". Don't listen to Abbie Hoffman, BUY NOW and join Rowell and Brown at free launch events next week in Pōneke.