Release Roundup & Playlist: Georgia Knight, Eden Burns, Cootie Cuties, Paradox Princess, Bilders, The Boondocks, Echomatica, SCRAN

Welcome back to the Release Roundup after a week away. I had an excellent time hanging about various gig spaces, record stores and yum food / coffee spots in our nation's capital Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington — hometown of iconic musical scribe Martyn Pepperell. Feeling freshly rejuvenated and inspired by those aforementioned sights and sounds (plus a trip to the Len Lye Centre), let us now dive deep into selected sonic highlights from the past fortnight. Revisit our coverage of Yurt Party, Pieces of Molly, Babe Martin, Silk Cut and Fables, then scroll downwards for more standout local releases from Georgia Knight, Eden Burns, Cootie Cuties, Paradox Princess, Bilders, The Boondocks, Echomatica, and SCRAN.

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 this year.

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

Ōtautahi by way of Naarm songwriter Georgia Knight has shared one last single before her debut album Beanpole launches next Friday. Eschewing the shadowy trip-hop moves of her previous two singles, Knight's new ballad 'Everybody Knows My Business Now' feels like an illuminating blast of sunlight, complete with a theatrical video made with Martin Sagadin and Marlon Williams, filmed at Lyttelton Arts Factory. "I’d just bought an autoharp and had it with me. I’d been plucking away and figured the song out, the chorus had been in my mind for a while. Jethro and I recorded a demo and then played it to Ben Salter who had come round for dinner... I hope someone uses it for an Eric Bana film."

The perfect aural companion for my flight homewards from New Plymouth on Wednesday afternoon, Aotearoa electronic artist Eden Burns' debut album And The Make Believers cites inspiration from such local post-punk pillars as Car Crash Set and Headless Chickens. The end result is a masterfully crafted club-friendly beast of its own, sounding to these ears akin to the buoyant sleek MIDI-pop of Eyeliner and James Ferraro's game-changing Far Side Virtual. Burns will be moving the crowd at SLACKBARN! summer festival on 10th January, get tickets HERE.

Out just in time for Halloween, 2 CUTE 2 DIE is a long-awaited debut album from Tāmaki Makaurau punks Cootie Cuties and it's a rowdy super-catchy ripper from the jump. Be sure to grab the limited vinyl LP edition via 1:12 Records, put together a wild outfit and get your butt along to this Sunday's Halloween launch party at Whammy Bar with Warm Leather, Tooms and MC Matthew Crawley — they're also playing at Dougfest in Kirikiriroa tonight, Tone Fest 2025 and hitting the South Island next month (get tickets HERE)!

A gloriously hectic track expressing "the essence of being a girl from Ōtepoti", '$O$' featuring Jata is the latest shot fired from queer experimental rapper Paradox Princess' forthcoming album HELLFIRE BURNS OUTSIDE THE PARTY — launching with a rager at Tāmaki's Nice Goblins on 22nd November (get tickets HERE). "Hope yall enjoy some demonic cuuuuuunnt. This is what a Dunnerz girl feels like yikes."

Honoured as an Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate recipient just last week, groundbreaking Ōtepoti songwriter / musician / poet Bill Direen sounds eternally inspired on Neverlasting, a new album "of psychic adventures, hard psychedelia and commentary with a bite" from his long-running Bilders moniker. You can catch the legend with band touring nationwide this November, grab tickets for most dates HERE. "We are the Neverlasting renter-squatters of Earth exhausted."

The Boondocks are "New Zealand's two-piece fuck outfit" and their debut album Don't Let Them See You Cry brings the grunty rock riffage on a scale way huger than what you might expect from a two-piece. Letting rip at Dougfest tonight, The Boondocks are touring their fist-pumping inaugural long player nationwide in the coming weeks, grip tickets for most dates right HERE.

Confidently dominating our local student radio charts while remaining fairly enigmatic (so far), Tāmaki Makaurau's Echomatica find a lovely balance between oceanic dream-pop, neo-gothic post-punk / trip-hop and questing soundscape urges on their self-titled debut album.

Tāmaki Makaurau post-punk champions SCRAN sail into the sunset with the launch of their second album Living Room, a world-class document to be treasured by listeners right now and audio archaeologists of the distant future — shedding light on the interior geographies of those navigating the particularly turbulent year 2025AD. "This is our swan song. Thanks for the memories. Over and out. X".