Release Roundup: Bic Runga, Kimbra, Mimi Riverz, Heavy Flow, Beth Torrance, Kaishandao + More

If our first Release Roundup of 2026 was a bite-sized appetiser, then this week's second edition offers a banquet of new and recent releases from Aotearoa New Zealand. Dip your ears / eyes into fresh local highlights by Bic Runga, Kimbra x Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Dream Chambers x Hun Lynch, Current Bias, Mimi Riverz x Takatapunani, Kaishandao, Heavy Flow, Beth Torrance, frog power, Blowfly Saint and Human22.

Every advance single from Bic Runga's imminent first album in ten years Red Sunset has felt a bit magical, and the Aotearoa superstar's new 'Ghost in Your Bed' is no exception. Again recorded with Kody Nielson (Silicon, The Mint Chicks, UMO), the ballad sounds (to these ears) a touch akin to The Bangles' 1987 version of Simon & Garfunkel's 'A Hazy Shade of Winter', sans guitar pyrotechnics and double haunting in tone. "'Ghost in Your Bed' was another song that I'd had unfinished for more than ten years. It's a spooky song of feeling very troubled, especially on a sleepless night, when you feel haunted by something, "lying there like the ghost in your bed" and realising the thing haunting you is of your own making."

Kimbra is one of Aotearoa's most successful pop musicians of all time, thanks in part to the enduring success of her 2011 mega-hit collaboration with Gotye, 'Somebody That I Used To Know' (currently sitting at over two billion streams). Always in possession of an experimental streak, Kimbra has reimagined the title track to LA avant-electronica composer / synthesist Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith's latest album GUSH, an unexpected encounter in sound which works very well. "I love the sound worlds she explores and it was really inspiring to deconstruct this track and put my own spin on it."

Premiered late last week at Sundance Film Festival, Mum, I'm Alien Pregnant is a very well titled new comedy / horror movie from Aotearoa directorial duo THUNDERLIPS. Electronic artist Dream Chambers and Hun Lynch (who co-stars in the film) created the gentle synthetic washes and sampled vocal burbles of the title track.

Te Whanganui-a-Tara club innovator Current Bias considers the non-stop churn of daily living in 2026 with 'we justkeepgoing', out in consistently pulsing 'Clean Mix' and hyper-accelerating 'Widetempo Mix' versions. "We justkeepgoing is an ode to how we feel the pace which life travels and its shifts. Life as a time based medium can feel as if its parts change slowly over time or for it to continue rising in tempo outside of your control."

The mysterious Mimi Riverz and fellow rising star Takatapunani (who has a new single out this Friday) bring the club-blasting bass and attitude to spare on 'WYFMP'. "Salty like an anchovy where’s your fucking manners please?"

On the impressively stacked bill for Power To Pōneke: Fundraiser For Wellington Womens Health Collective this Friday, electronic hardware enthusiast Kaishandao aka Kristen Ng's (Kiwese) Shanghai / Sweetie two-pack dropped during the pre-Xmas interzone — now ruling the throne at number one on the bFM Top Ten.

I caught Tāmaki punks Heavy Flow raising hell at Geihinkan's Ramen Club last year — the best (only?) local spot for munching on noodles at a gig — and they've delivered the goods again with Laugh Through Every Storm. Four whiplash rippers from Andrew Told, Ioane Donnelly and Kylie Johnson, laid down with Tom Anderson in New Lynn. "I hope this inspires people to share what's in their hearts and to walk through life sharing positivity and love."

Tāmaki Makaurau songwriter Beth Torrance gets 2026 rolling with a minimal yet powerful iPhone demo rendition of Joy Division's timeless 'Atmosphere'.

Cutting right through the fog of disinformation and propaganda which dominates our social media saturated era, Ōtepoti's frog power declares 'evil is evil' on their newest DIY pop bop.

Stefan Neville (Pumice) and Brisbane-based sonic adventurer Leighton Craig sat down for a joyful and contemplative late night jam together in early 2006, the highlights from which have reemerged two decades later as Blowfly Saint's Midnight Singers. "Stefan and I watched a performance of Odetta singing Waterboy with her take-no-prisoners vocal / guitar thwump. Suitably inspired, we took to setting up the drums and gear, which were stashed in a kind of weird long cupboard in Stefan's basement bedroom."

Inadvisably released on Christmas Day 2025 via independent heavyweights Melted Ice Cream, The Ascetic Virtues features nineteen mind-warping, genre-mangling tunes from Ōtautahi's Human22 (The Dance Asthmatics, BnP), with pals exile-anti, RCD aka Real Cool Dude, Mozart.exe, and Cooldude69 ."This truly terrible nineteen-track album (is) about hate, longing, creation myth, and how life's a lot like sitting in shit; selling your future for a pittance."