Release Roundup: Bic Runga, Mainard Larkin, Porcelain, Missrosevalentina, Naakz & Babyzoot + More

We're stoked to be back in roundup mode following a hectic short week. Revisit our recent coverage of Earth Tongue, Hemi Hemingway, Vera Ellen, Fables, Fazed On A Pony and Grecco Romank, then scroll downwards for new / recent Aotearoa release highlights from Bic Runga, Mainard Larkin, Porcelain, missrosevalentina, Naakz & Babyzoot, Maebh McCurdy & the Morrígan, Miles Calder, U-No Juno, and frog power.

One of most celebrated Aotearoa artists of the past three decades, Bic Runga embraces a new era of avant-dream-pop magic with her new album Red Sunset. The multi-award-winning artist's "first album of original songs since 2011’s Belle" — leapfrogging 2016's also superb (primarily) covers collection Close Your Eyes — was co-produced and co-written with longterm partner Kody Nielson, who'll be joining Runga as Silicon on her autumn launch tour. "After such a long time between albums, I didn’t want to rush this one. These songs came together slowly, in a very particular place and time, and that space really shaped how the record sounds and feels."

The first new recruit to Lil Chief Records in a decade, Mainard Larkin's 'Rattlesnake Boy' reveals a fresh sonic trajectory for the artist formerly known to rock the mic as Randa. The lead single from Larkin's debut solo album is a tender-hearted alt-country "portrait of a wrestler in the prime of his career, but he is facing this sudden dip and he’s aware that he’s not living by the most amazing values", co-written with Tom Lark (Shannon Fowler). His love for the wrestling ring extends to the accompanying clip for 'Rattlesnake Boy', filmed and edited by Joe Curtis.

Swiftly arising from the ashes of local post-punks SCRAN, Porcelain are the high pedigree Tāmaki Makaurau trio of Lewis Yeats, Jackson Sullivan and Oscar Davies-Kay. Picking up the baton from their former group and running with it, 'Momentary Bliss' is an exceptional opening salvo, forlorn yet radiating frayed magnificence.

It is all happening in Aotearoa music this week. 'THE SPECTATOR' is a huge new banger from now Ōtautahi-based trans-glam electronic pop starlet missrosevalentina (fka Hybrid Rose), setting us up for the launch of her upcoming BITE EP in just one month's time.

The seven track creation of Te Whanganui-a-Tara rapper / producers Naakz & Babyzoot, Three-headed Taniwha has been reaping praise from devotees of bleeding-edge Aotearoa hip-hop since it dropped two weeks back. "Our statement: We don't align with the government; NACTNZ is actively harming Māori through policy and decisions. Creativity in Māori music spaces. Ko te auahatanga te mea nui! I titohia ēnei waiata, kia whakahou ai ngā momo waiata Māori! Ahakoa te reo rua, he Māori te kaupapa, te whakaaro, me te ngākau hoki. (Musical creativity is our focus! These songs were written to introduce new styles of Māori music. Despite it being bilingual, the topics, thoughts and heart of the project are Māori."

Special guest at last November's sweltering Exploding Rainbow Orchestra Songbook Volume Four event at Hopetoun Alpha, Maebh McCurdy — formerly known as LEIGH — and her group the Morrígan reveal an in-the-zone live rendition of 'He's Giving', from 2025's standout Empathy for My Future Self. Keep on the lookout for new album Maebh & the Morrígan (Live at Isdale Studios) out on 6th March

Te Whanganui-a-Tara songwriter Miles Calder unfurled 'You Could Lose It', a hazy summer cruiser with a touch of Stonesy strut, co-produced with Samuel Flynn Scott (The Phoenix Foundation) — teeing us up for his forthcoming Keeping Up EP.

Touted by Rolling Stone as already one of the best bands in Aotearoa New Zealand, noise-rockers U-No Juno star in the first edition of a new live series shot at War Possum Studios in Ōtepoti, filmed and edited by Tane Cotton (Sivle Talk).

Speaking of Ōtepoti artists, DIY pop star frog power provides an exclusive home studio reveal in the refreshingly lo-res clip for scrappy new earworm (frogworm?) 'when they come'.