Release Roundup & Playlist: Liam Finn, UMO, LEIGH, Office Dog, The Circling Sun, Valentino Del Mar + More

We hope you found time during the Matariki long holiday weekend for reflection, celebration and planning. I bounced between some very high quality events in Tāmaki Makaurau: Geneva A.M's Pikipiki album listening party, Bassvictim at Neck of the Woods last night (my ears are still ringing), and Machine Girl with P.H.F. (now featuring Roy Irwin) on Saturday, plus a musically rewarding op shop adventure. Revisit our coverage last week of new Aotearoa releases by Jazmine Mary, Pearly* and French For Rabbits, then dig in to fresh new / recent local highlights from Liam Finn, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, LEIGH, Office Dog, Valentino Del Mar, The Circling Sun, LOU'ANA, Georgia Lines, MISSY, and Raiden Freeman.

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! Only including tracks available on streaming services of course.

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

These days a core member of Aotearoa's most beloved rock 'n' roll family band Crowded House, the creatively uncontainable Liam Finn officially lifted the lid on his long-promised Hyperverse album. An ambitious project that was threatening to achieve Smile session myth status, Hyperverse brings together a whole bunch of tunes already familiar to fans — especially to those who tuned in to the record's candid creation via Twitch — plus some captivating unheard ones, such as snarling noise-rock stomper 'Con Man' and oceanic new lead single 'Love In Disguise'. The vinyl LP version features tunes not yet on streaming services, so you'll need to grab a physical copy. "The Hyperverse project has been a labor of love and the most creative period of my life. I wanted to find a way to write, record, and release music outside of the traditional industry standards, replacing the parts that felt forced and soul-destroying with more creativity and more connection to humans. What I ended up with is a body of work that encapsulates the epic three-year process and some of the most honest and exciting music I’ve ever made."

While very much a nightmare in many other aspects (waving hands at today's news headlines), 2025 has been a fine year for fans of Ruban Nielson's Unknown Mortal Orchestra. They've treated us to the extended mutant funk / disco-scapes of their instrumental album IC-02 Bogotá, now switching to dark heavy-psych songwriting mode on the superb new CURSE EP — tipping the hat to Italian prog-horror vividness and UK proto-metal across six tracks. Feel the doomy riffage of 'ONE HUNDRED BATS' and 'SORCERERS OF SILENCE', plus sing along with new lead single 'DEATH COMES FROM THE SKY'.

LEIGH aka Cameron McCurdy's new album self-produced new album launched last Friday, marking the first anniversary of the transgender art-pop artist starting HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy). Already looked forward to around these parts due to luminous SRN hit 'I Still Love the Moon' and the genre-mashing pyrotechnics of 'Comfortable', Empathy for My Future Self feels thrillingly confident and kaleidoscopic, adorned with painted artwork by Tashi Donnelly. There's a huge cast of local contributors chipping in, including "a choir of genderqueer Tāmaki Makaurau musicians" on 'He's Giving' — be sure to head along to the official release parties at Big Fan, in Te Papaioea and Pōneke this July (selected tickets HERE). "This album is dedicated with sympathy to the boy I once was, and dedicated with empathy to the woman I will be. The album releases on the one year anniversary of the first time I took my HRT. I have never been more proud of anything I've made in my entire life."

Special guests on last year's LIVE MUSIC BAR series (produced by Sports Team), Office Dog punctuate the space between studio album releases with a casual yet bracing new two song pack. "Long story short, we were going to let these songs go and have a fresh start for our next album, but De (Stevens) went and cleaned up some demos we recorded before our trip to America and encouraged us to release them. This means they are pretty bare bones and a little more unhinged, only just written at this point in time, but it’s nice to have captured a couple tracks when we were most excited about them."

A local legend in a whole new guise, Valentino Del Mar's new album SOUNDS OF HAUNTED SURF via Aotearoa's beyond crucial Magnetic B.S Records (once known as Stink Magnetic) interrogates the mysterious vibrations of wave-crashing coastlines and challenges the awfulness attacking our dimensional reality — boasting such timely instrumentals as 'THEME TO A TESLA TAKEDOWN' and 'FUCK ICE'. "From the Pacific Islands of Aotearoa New Zealand to the Driftless Valleys of Mid-West Turtle Island, these are the reverberated frequencies captured in a uniquely rare and unusual assignment by that luxurious midnight surfer, the colt of sensual conjurence, aka the“Valet of Velvet”, Valentino Del Mar. In this, the one and only found recording of Senior Del Mar, Magnetic B.S Records attempts to present a listenable instrumental surf album for the aural consumption of the ravenous in an almost acceptable presentation."

Instantly whisking listeners away to interstellar realms, 'Mizu' is the newest track revealed from Aotearoa spiritual jazz voyagers The Circling Sun's forthcoming new long player Orbits.

LOU'ANA ensorcells listeners and dancefloors with the first half of her excellently named new album Disco Witch, led by storming club cut 'Aphrodite'. "I’ve always been drawn to the inner journey, to cracking open what lies beneath the surface. It’s uncomfortable, often confronting, but I’ve never been afraid to look. This song is a reflection of that process — the longing to understand myself, the trust it takes to keep going, and the quiet sense of guidance I’ve felt along the way."

Best Pop Artist Tūī winner Georgia Lines makes big soul-funk moves and cheekily probes relationship boundaries with her latest anthem 'Julia', released with an accompanying clip directed by Mikee Carpinter. "We’ve all had that moment with an ex. Maybe we don’t say it out loud, but deep down we’re thinking, ‘You can date anyone… just not her.’ ‘Julia’ taps into that exact feeling, but with a sense of humour about it. It was actually inspired by a dream I had, twice in the same night, where I found out an ex was seeing the one girl I secretly hoped he wouldn’t end up with. Classic dream logic, but even in my dream my response was ridiculous."

Tāmaki Makaurau electronic pop artist MISSY aka Abigail Knudson revealed part one of her ambitious FUCK, MARRY, KILL trilogy album series on Friday. Sporting ten tracks with two more entire long players to be released on the coming months, FUCK's snappy lead single and project title track 'Fuck Marry Kill' lays the projects cards on the table, with exuberance and melodrama verging on the operatic — featuring plush visuals directed by Ethan Barrow. "‘Fuck Marry Kill’ encapsulates the essence of the entire project. It’s pop with an edge, sexy, expressive, and effervescent... I took the phrase and re-routed it to being about ONE person. The options are to fuck+marry or kill It illustrates an early phase of possessive and consuming attraction that isn't based on any rationality or internal logic - it is simply an urge."

Rightly acclaimed by those with their ears to Aotearoa's underground, musician and filmmaker Raiden Freeman is a spectral presence surveying mossy local bush walks, in a new self-directed video for Deep Farm 2 album highlight 'Compass'. "Got my feelings tricklin' down like Reagan's economics / But all I care about is don't interrupt me playing Sonic."