Release Roundup: Thee Golden Geese, Fazerdaze, Swallow The Rat, Jude Kelly, LEIGH, Salad Boys, Deva Mahal + More

Revisit this week's coverage of Grecco Romank, Michael Llewellyn, Racing, BLOODBAGS and Georgia Lines, then explore more new / recent highlights from Thee Golden Geese, Fazerdaze, Swallow the Rat, Jude Kelly, LEIGH, Salad Boys, Deva Mahal featuring Estère, Solo Ono, Ocean Beach, and Fly My Pretties.

Scroll down and scope out the 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!

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

Oh my goodness it's Thee Golden Geese, bounding back out of retirement with blockbuster new single 'Minecraft', out just in time for the feathered funsters to rock Armageddon Expo's nerd culture mainstage at Auckland Showgrounds on 31st May. A young gaming enthusiast has their digital dreams dashed by a similarly screen-addicted mean old parent, in James Dansey, Gareth Shute, Dave Taylor and Matthew Crawley's absurdly catchy (and curiously relatable) garage-pop-bop. The official word is Thee Geese are launching an interactive Goose Your Own Adventure quest, recalling the pen / paper / dice excitement of Fighting Fantasy masters of the form Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, in which "YOU ARE THE HERO".

Propulsive, sparkling and crunchy, Ōtautahi-based new wave / dream-pop superstar Fazerdaze shared new single 'Motorway' before she jets to the US for an expansive tour alongside indie-rock Pixies and Spoon. "(Motorway was written from) a feeling of being trapped between a city and a relationship, searching for home in both, but finding it in neither. It explores an enmeshment with familiarity; and the motorway becoming a symbol of that for me; repetitive, a loop to break out of, a false sense of freedom".

Tāmaki Makaurau's Swallow the Rat complete their Face Unpopular EP with new track 'Make The Trains' plus a sonically wild remix of earlier single 'MMA Math' by NYC guitar tone gurus A Place to Bury Strangers. Their release tour starts tonight at Whammy Bar — tickets and tour details HERE.

Rising songwriter Jude Kelly shared her debut The Seven Spirits of Her EP, made over two years with producers Josh Fountain and Devin Abrams. She's playing a launch event with band this Saturday at Tāmaki Makaurau's Whammy Bar, secure your spot HERE. "The Seven Spirits of Her has become almost an audio biopic. Each song harnesses a different story that taps into an experience or a part of us — whether it's love, contentment, being confused with life, or growing up too quickly, one cannot be without the other. In a sweet way, it’s questions I asked when I was 15, answered. These stories have been for me, but I hope when people listen to the EP they too can see the beauty in the ugly".

Rolling out swoony UTR office fave 'I Still Love the Moon' late last month, LEIGH swivels to industrial textures and wordplay "based on a song she heard in a dream about trans women unionising to cuck transphobes", with her excellently titled new single 'March of the Cucks'. LEIGH's new album Empathy for My Future Self will be out on 20th June and there'll be a party to celebrate at Big Fan on 5th July, with Club Ruby and K M T P — you can nab tickets HERE.

Creators of 2018's standout long player This Is Glue, Ōtautahi guitar-slingers Salad Boys — Joe Sampson-only in this aspect — suddenly reemerge with The Orange EP. One of the most unique local releases we've encountered this year, the EP is out physically in a brutally limited edition of 15 CD-Rs. That's not all: "Each disc is an entirely different performance of the six songs — your disc will literally be like no other! The EP was recorded 20 times over, with 15 versions making the grade for release. It was recorded live to a Tascam 424 MKIII on either March 28, March 30 or April 11 2025. The version you can hear on Bandcamp is number 9 out of 15".

Hawai'i-raised and Wellington-based soul / R&B star Deva Mahal teams up with fellow powerhouse Estère on new single 'South Coast', out today with an absolute stunner video co-directed with Dana Leaming. "It's about saying what you mean and not wallowing in your feelings. It's also about seeing things as they are and breaking the fantasy or illusion of something when it is truly something else... The video is steeped in my Afro-Caribbean heritage as it pays homage to Mami Wata (also represented as Yemaya) who is the goddess of water and serpents. The powerful love of the Black Mermaid. I'm conjuring ancestral magic here. My indigenous roots to the land and sea".

Announced this week as special guests at Princess Chelsea's fantasy-themed Midwinter Ball at Tāmaki's The Civic Wintergarden, Aotearoa interstellar jazz collective The Circling Sun ensorcel listeners with 'Constellation' — the first tune revealed from their forthcoming sophomore album Orbits, out on 11th July via Soundway Records.

Solo Ono consider hyper-capitalism's dangerously precarious trajectory with their pleasingly frazzled new single 'Fungibles'.

Hook-powered and fuzzed-out, Ocean Beach's debut album Long Road Home tells the tale of lead songwriter Gary Dalhousie's "journey from anxious Southland kid to conscious father, partner, and mentor... From Invercargill in the '70 to modern day Grey Lynn. Spat out from a neurotic state highway of self-medication. Drugs, alcohol, and anxious delinquency fuelled this unwarrantable heap from the bottom of the world, up State Highway 1, onto the Northwestern Motorway, to be ejected at the St Luke’s off-ramp".

Led by by musical directors Barnaby Weir and Laughton Kora, Aotearoa super-collective Fly My Pretties unveiled their seventh album ELEMENTAL — featuring AJA, RIIKI REID, Taylah, Louis TM, Aaron Stewart, Iraia Whakamoe (The Nudge), Nigel Patterson (The Black Seeds) and Ryan Prebble (The Nudge).