Release Roundup: PollyHill x Samara Alofa x MOKOTRON, Black Comet, Pickle Darling, Baby Zionov, AUNTY EL, Pearly*, Echomatica

Revisit this week's coverage of Danica Bryant, Dick Move, Kora, The Beths, Half Hexagon, NO CIGAR and our interview with Ringlets about their new album The Lord Is My German Shepherd (Time For Walkies), then explore new / recent local highlights from PollyHill x Samara Alofa x MOKOTRON, Black Comet, Pickle Darling, Baby Zionov, AUNTY EL, Pearly*, and Echomatica.

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. 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.

How many next level Aotearoa names can be affiliated with one single release? As if attempting to answer this hypothetical, Sunreturn today unveil 'HOME (MOKOTRON REMIX)', a Hiko reimagining of a track from PollyHill x Samara Alofa's 2023 avant-electronic / hip-hop masterpiece AQUARIES. 2025 Taite Music Prize winning producer MOKOTRON's cavernous rework heralds AQUARIES: AGE OF URANUS, an all-legends remix album curated by superstar DJ HALFQUEEN — out in a hugely covetable limited vinyl LP edition on 29th August. MOKOTRON explained, "Everyone involved, HALFQUEEN, Paloma, Samara, are just super talented, so the main thing was, this has to be one of the best tunes I’ve ever written. I’ve gotta use puoro that have never appeared on any of my other tunes. I’ve gotta use bass sounds I’ve never used before. And I have to remove the breaks, which underpin all my tunes. It had to develop as a composition, it had to be both cinematic and minimal. And I wanted that shock factor – that it would start like a typical MOKOTRON tune and then switch the minute the vocal drops and take the listener by surprise.".

Soon embarking on a triple date North Island tour with Kora, Black Comet (founded by Laughton Kora) deliver cosmic energy on their second studio long player Episode Two: The Force Between Us. Opener 'Crypto Embrace' explodes out the gates and immediately grips this listener with its post-Prince / The Time Minneapolis party-up phonk, following up with the jazz-funk majesty of 'We Can Call It Love'. Black Comet keep the energy high as they chart their own intergalactic course — dropping heroically heavy P-Funk on 'Lightning Cracking', and even venturing into stomping glam-boogie rock on 'Happen To You'. Sounds like a must see band to these ears!

Possibly named after director Ujicha's hypnotically distressing 2018 cardboard puppet feature film, 'Violence Voyager' is the new single from Pickle Darling, aka Ōtautahi bedroom pop songwriter / producer Lukas Mayo. Animator Christiane Shortal conjures onto our screens beautifully jaggy low polygon visuals for the inventive tune, the third song revealed from Pickle Darling's forthcoming album Battlebots — out on 5th September via US imprint Father / Daughter Records. "It’s a low poly ode to nature, and the feeling of connecting to something greater. We took our little PS1 mascot and brought them to transcendence."

At this point in the lead up to Baby Zionov's new album Raceways of My Heart (out on 2nd October via Sunreturn), this listener is starting to detect a theme. Featuring vocals and additional production from deepState, 'Dolphin Diamond Raceway' follows recent SRN hit 'Froggy Forest Raceway' — zooming along a kart racetrack through euphoric post-Seapunk / Ultrademon zones of legit bubble rave mania. The reward when you get to the finish line is: you get to hit play on 'Dolphin Diamond Raceway' again! "This is the first track on the album and maybe my favourite song I've ever made :-)"

AUNTY EL serves up five killer club-pumping cuts on If not now then when — delivering Tāmaki Makaurau late night disco / rave / house party goodness, from the dressed to impress opener 'Let's go out' right up to the booty-wiggling closing moments of 'Disc hoe'. "Feeling #exposed putting out music that’s been living in my bedroom the last 2 years. I was reluctant to put this out, scared of criticism 3tc. but fuk it if not now then when!?!?"

Recent Eyegum Scenic Tour-mates with Cruelly, Pearly*'s 'Not So Sweet' is the slow-burning and pitiless jangle-fuzz title track to the Ōtepoti's combo's forthcoming new album — a joint release out on 29th August via Leather Jacket Records, Pinacolada Records and Flying Nun Records! Soak up director Kieran J. Dodd's accompanying southern noir visuals.

Tāmaki Makaurau's Echomatica announce themselves with the starlit dream-pop / trip-hop vibrations of debut single 'Love Isn't Always'.