Release Roundup: Babe Martin, Maxine Funke, Mim Jensen, Yumi Zouma, Hail, Meteor!, Casual Healing, Sheep, Dog & Wolf, Paradox Princess + More

Revisit our past seven days' coverage of Beastwars, Tom Scott, Mazbou Q, Yurt Party, Cowboy Dan and Hallelujah Picassos, then scroll downwards for new / recent highlights from Babe Martin, Maxine Funke, Mim Jensen, Yumi Zouma, Hail, Meteor!, Casual Healing, Sheep, Dog & Wolf, Paradox Princess, Riki Gooch (with huge band), plus The 1st Compilation from Jukebox Baby Records.

Scope out the UTR Roundup Playlist below, 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, which has been an increasingly hot topic during the past few weeks.

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

Recommended by Rolling Stone as one of a select few 'Kiwi Artists Tipped to Take Over', Babe Martin aka Zoë Larsen Cumming shares her second official single of 2025, a soaring and emotionally frank piano-led ballad, recorded with live bandmates Harry Thompson-Cook, Amy Borovich (HINA), Fen Ikner (LIPS), and Maude Minnie Morris. Out now via Sunreturn, director Ali Burns' video elevates 'Only Good' further into arthouse pop territory, via stylish use of chess set, beekeeper outfit, and autumnal Tāmaki Makaurau suburban villa setting. "Only Good is about the very early stages of a relationship where there are no expectations, no pressure, no rules — just the joy of getting to know someone in a new light. As the lyrics say, ‘You don’t know me, so you don’t owe me nothing yet,’ and vice versa. It’s about enjoying the freedom that comes from ambiguity. It felt important to capture that time and feeling."

Leading light of Aotearoa avant-folk songwriting (and a world-class producer to boot), Maxine Funke reemerges with nine typically sublime new works on 'Timeless Town' — for example, pay attention to the magical synth-balladry of 'Crocus'. "The result of mucking around on my keyboard the last two years. After being spectacularly fired from the community care trust, thought it might be time to start another album. Took what I thought was an easy job in security but somehow ended up passing extra work training courses and then a heap of 12 hour shifts and restraining mentally unwell people. Thank you First Security for funding my art! Well you bet I was happy on my days off! I love this album."

Wowing crowds with a commanding performance at Going Global Festival last month, Ōtautahi's Mim Jensen delivers a touch of country-pop warble and big fuzz-rock feels on new anthem 'Sidekick' (which I initially misheard as "been feeling like a psychic lately"). Filmmaker Armand Le Roux accompanying clip is a gripping tale in itself, bringing to visual life "the love story of olive and martini." Jensen shared, "Writing the song helped me shed light on a tough feeling. It was a really good reminder to not take myself too seriously but still honour my fragility in the moment. It was actually a really fun song to write, and one of my favourite songs to play live."

Achieving big things abroad, the journey towards Yumi Zouma's fifth album No Love Lost to Kindness continues with new single 'Drag'. The Aotearoa combo's lean to more gritty and dramatic textures and atmospheres is suiting them very well. Co-directed with Julian Vares, the cinematic video dials up the songs cyber-goth / industrial-grunge qualities, plus is the Christie Command Control Center a reference to Japanese noise icons C.C.C.C? Mad times. "We wanted the song to feel like slowly rotating in sludge and then screaming the most anthemic chorus at the top of your lungs. Hooks from a 1998 issue of Smash Hits. There’s a choir of monks in the bridge, but we covered it with samples and industrial synth arpeggios from the nonexistent soundtrack of the crossover prequel for RoboCop and The Fifth Element, featuring Silverchair, Shihad, Garbage, Stellar*, Evanescence, and Placebo."

Te Whanganui-a-Tara's bi-lingual, post-punk, death-pop collective Hail, Meteor! unfurled the lead track from their forthcoming new album Nearer — swirling elements of dreamy shoegaze and heavy psych into their spellbinding palette on 'Most At Ease', paired with suitably impressionistic visuals by Simon Waterfield. They're treating hometown punters to a release gig at Newtown's Moon on 10th October with Naarm's Welder Inc. and Deaf Edge, grab tickets HERE.

Pōneke superstar Casual Healing aka Nikau Te Huki's new single 'Moving Together' is a passionate and bass-heavy homage to his "best friend and baby-mama, and the love they’ve worked so hard to nurture", reminding this listener in some ways of Brian Ferry's similarly devoted classic 'Let's Stick Together'. "After 8 years and two children, I can honestly say we’ve seen the best and worst in each other — but we chose to stay and grow together. That's true love; that's what this song is about."

Currently following their own muse in the northern hemisphere, Sheep, Dog & Wolf aka avant-pop songwriter / composer Daniel McBride's new single 'Epiphanies I & II' unfolds like an introspective and intricately arranged prog-folk-opus, complete with a maximal visual extravaganza humbly described by the artist as "a silly music video." "When things start to seem dark, I often find it hard to figure out whether I’m heading down a baseless spiral or actually confronting something that I need to act on, to push through. Epiphanies is about a time in my life when I chose the latter — even though at times it seemed like I was tearing my life apart for no reason - and the strange feeling of possibility and desolation that followed."

Prepping our senses for her forthcoming second album HELLFIRE BURNS OUTSIDE THE PARTY, Tāmaki Makaurau trans artist Paradox Princess' new single 'QUEEN OF THE VOID' sounds primed to explode club speakers and drive dancers into a frenzy. "So fucking excited this manic thing is out is finally out, it’s been two years in the making but now the time is here."

Conducted by Riki Gooch (Cave Circles), 50/50 documents a gigantic ensemble of some of Aotearoa's finest sonic voyagers at Tāmaki Makaurau's The Wine Cellar (RIP), making a joyfully noisy, free spirited racket to mark saxophone maestro / Audio Foundation head honcho Jeff Henderson's fiftieth birthday. "To celebrate my 50th yearly cycle I invited Riki Gooch to conduct an ensemble of 50 musicians... it ended up being 63 musicians crammed into the Wine Cellar, which left enough room for whatever audience was there to listen. A memorable event!"

The 1st Compilation from Berlin's Jukebox Baby Records features tunes will be of interest to local music buffs, including contributions from such globe-trotting Aotearoa (and affiliated) acts as Pink & White Terraces, L V J, an exotica offering from party rockers The Tarts, and probably a bunch of pseudonyms I haven't spotted as of yet.