Release Roundup & Playlist: SCRAN, Arahi, Dale Kerrigan, Satin Sheets, Raiden Freeman, Lachie Hayes, Frau Knotz, Desire Path

Revisit last week's coverage of Carnivorous Plant Society, Jazmine Mary, The Situations, Deva Mahal, Georgia Lines and our interview with Soft Bait about their superb new album Life Advice, then explore new / recent local highlights from SCRAN, Arahi, Dale Kerrigan, Satin Sheets, Raiden Freeman, Lachie Hayes, Frau Knotz, and Desire Path (aka Strange Stains).

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 — a noted trend is even more artists than usual this week have Bandcamp-only releases. Author of Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist (One Signal Publishers), music journalist Liz Pelly will unpack the politics of contemporary streaming in conversation with Martyn Pepperell at Tāmaki Makaurau's Whammy Bar on 26th August, get tickets HERE.

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

Creators of 2024's consistently ace (and certainly deserving of a wider audience) debut album To Your Heart's Content, Tāmaki Makaurau's SCRAN are back to reclaim their post-punk crown with 'Pride', the lead single from their forthcoming second long player Living Room. "It’s a song about the futility of national pride, identity, and losing yourself to a belief-system," says Lewis Yeats, chasing shadows down at the local rugby club in the accompanying video directed by Gwen Lin.

One half of Pony Baby with Jazmine Mary (also core member of their band), 2023 Silver Scroll Top Twenty finalist Arahi shares 'Mai Tawhiti', a soaring bi-lingual rock waiata with Anna Coddington — "the final single before we really get into album territory" — gifting fans a glimpse behind the veil in the accompanying studio video.

Incontestably one of Aotearoa's finest guitar-mangling combos operating right now, both on stage and on record, Ōtepoti's Dale Kerrigan crash / clang in their own mighty manner on 'Mornington Park'. "This is the final single before our 3rd Album Heavy Greasy comes out on August 1st."

Aotearoa's vaporwave production wiz Satin Sheets rematerialises with 'CONTROL' and 'FOLLOW', gliding through breaks-driven celestial highways towards the launch of album number three S.WORLD — out in a nearly all gone vinyl LP edition on 1st August via US genre-definers 100% Electronica.

Just announced as special guest support for Ringlets' album release soirée at Pōneke's Meow next Friday, the inimitable Raiden Freeman's new cover of Burt Bacharach's 'The Balance of Nature' encapsulates everyday beauty and rare grace in love.

Produced by Delaney Davidson, Lachie Hayes kick-flips into listeners' hearts with his rustic new alt-country / blues-rock opus Subsatellite, the southern songwriter's second album in a career spanning ten years so far. You can catch him as special guest at the Shaky Hollows' record release gig this Saturday at Ōtepoti's Pearl Diver, grab tickets HERE. "It’s simple to look at a small, distant world and say there’s nothing there, that it’s a barren place with nothing to offer. But we know better. We may be far from the bright lights, a small spot on the map, but it’s filled with character, creativity, and a unique soul. This whole album, came from that feeling. I am a subsatellite, but I have wheels within wheels, I am more than meets the eye. This album tells the story of how small towns are more than barren worlds. We’re alive, we’re ambitious, and we’re ready to prove it."

Frau Knotz's new single 'Khepri' utilises chillier textures than the New Plymouth electronic artist's technicolored recent 'Victory Dance on ZR3', but feels equally capable of inspiring bodies to dance. The second tune revealed from next week's Digital Plastic Surgery EP, 'Khepri' alludes to the scarab-faced sun deity of ancient Egypt: "The scarab beetle was a symbol of new life and rebirth in Ancient Egypt because the beetle lays its eggs in a ball of dung. The Egyptians equated the hatching of the eggs with the rise of the 'newly born' sun. The scarab god Khepri was a creator; in the Pyramid Texts he was referred to as a sun god, 'he who is coming into being'."

'Baby's on a Horsi Ride' is the third electronic dance excursion from Desire Path, a new project of Aotearoa avant-club icon Strange Stains — recorded by Ben Woods and unfolding over five minutes like a casual yet magical house / techno rural gallop.