Release Roundup & Playlist: Babe Martin, James Dansey, Georgia Knight, Imani-J

A short and snappy mini-roundup for your Monday following a big weekend, we'll be back to the full length version this Friday. Revisit last week's coverage of The Bats, Awning and our interview with Bloodbags, then delve downwards for new / recent local highlights from Babe Martin, James Dansey, Georgia Knight, and Imani-J.

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 — notably more artists than usual this week have Bandcamp-only releases.

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

Key member of Jazmine Mary's live band, Babe Martin aka Zoë Larsen Cumming reemerges with her first solo release since 2023's The Versoix EP — which prompted Rolling Stone to tout the songwriter as one of "Eight Kiwi Artists Tipped to Take Over". 'Sundog' is the assured and opulent lead ballad from Babe Martin's forthcoming Not a Bee, but a Wasp EP, co-produced with Maude Minnie Morris and Navakatoa Tekela-Pule, out now via Sunreturn with suitably sublime, somewhat overworldly visual accompaniment. You can catch Babe Martin supporting Jazmine Mary in Te Whanganui-a-Tara on 31st July and at Lyttelton Coffee Co. on 1st August (get tickets HERE). "Sundog, in hindsight, is about patience. It feels like the calm before a storm. Change is on the way, but it’s not here yet, and you’re just waiting. To me, it feels suspended and calm, but with an eye on the horizon."

Kei Raro i te Wai - Mahi Oro nō te Kōnae Ipurangi 'Witi Underwater', is a debut EP of te reo Māori "pop soundscapes" by James Dansey (Ngāruahine, Te Arawa, Tūwharetoa), Tāmaki-based audio-visual legend of Chabs & Milky, The Sneaks and Thee Golden Geese fame (plus more). Composed to accompany the Witi Underwater podcast — in which "Whale Rider creator Witi Ihimaera throws himself in the deep end of a full-immersion Māori language course that tests him to his limit" — the six waiata release brings together imaginative sculpted sound worlds, hypnagogic pop instrumentation and uplifting harmonised vocals, featuring contributions from Paetawhiti Tumai and Ihimaera himself. "It's not only just learning the reo, it is how to use it, how to talk it, how to create new sentences you never ever thought of, how to comprehend your world in a different way'" (Witi Ihimaera).

Naarm / Aotearoa songwriter Georgia Knight makes a big splash with 'Desire', a twilight sonic realm where noirish trip-hop arrangements and Italians Do It Better-esque lyrical melodrama dance together — launched with shadowy visuals co-made with Tom Lynch, Marlon Williams, and Martin Sagadin.

Swiftly attracting fans is Haitian-Aotearoa rising star Imani-J, whose percussively fluid and emotionally frank 'Part of Me' is the latest in a standout run of singles unfurled during the past twelve months.