Release Roundup: Amamelia, DC Maxwell, Eden Burns, Body Beat Ritual, Keepsakes, TL Stamp, Sanoi, Mudgoose + More

I ducked away for some quality mid-summer downtown on Waiheke Island earlier this week, then logged back in to arguably the most exciting week yet for local music in 2026. Scroll downwards for new / recent Aotearoa highlights from Amamelia, DC Maxwell, Eden Burns, Body Beat Ritual, Keepsakes, TL Stamp, Sanoi, Mudgoose, frog power and this dog.

Winner of Te Manu Taki Tāhiko o te Tau (Best Electronic Artist) at the 2024 Aotearoa Music Awards, Amamelia's new single 'Theme From Living' transports this listener to a technicolor universe akin to Sid and Marty Krofft's 1970 fantasy-musical Pufnstuf — zapping the world with effervescent synths, buoyant chants and the best guitar tone I've heard on a local track in bloody ages. It's the third single revealed from Amamelia's just announced third album The Joy Of Living, out in full on 17th April via Sunreturn (preorderable on vinyl LP right now). "I came up with the vocal melody while I was waiting for the train at the Footscray station, I hid behind a pillar to sing it into my phone. It wasn't until I got home that I realised it was in crazy shifting time signatures. I love a bit of a unison gang vocal so I called up my friends and everyone really pulled through!"

Now also based across the ditch in Naarm, DC Maxwell throws down a gauntlet of passion and melancholy with 'Funeral Suit', heralding the arrival of his new album The Singer on 22nd May. The sharply dressed artist wields the power of love like a blade cutting through a world of confusion, this time cavorting with weird cultish figures in the accompanying video co-directed with UTR alum Jess Fu. "This song is an attempt to find reasons to live when the grim spectre of death is hanging over your head. I was thinking a lot about what there is to cling to in life when the mind gets fixated on death. I thought that one of the rocks in the storm was the closeness and physical presence of someone that means something to you. But I didn’t want to write a soppy love song. I wanted to write something that showed that love is not light and fluffy, but can be a fierce weapon against depression and nihilism in a chaotic world. This is a love song about choosing to turn away from the darkness and to try and fuck around and find out what is out there that can bring you joy."

While it's been seemingly impossible to track down a local vinyl LP copy of Eden Burns' recently released and very excellent debut album And The Make Believers, the prolific Aotearoa electronic dance auteur is already teeing us up for his next tune bundle. 'Challenge God with Your House' is the appropriately lofty lead track from Big Beat Manifesto Vol. XI, moving body and mind ahead of the new EP's full launch on 13th March.

Whanganui's own club production maestro Body Beat Ritual smooshed two significant days of the year into one, launching his new HALLOWEENLAND EP last Saturday on Valentine's Day. A reflection on underground club culture and Gen X disaffection of the late 20th century, the four track release coaxes moody new forms from "1980s Belgian, New Beat tempos, acid house, 1990s literature, and late-night connections" — re-jacked to resonate with our hyperaccelerated present.

Co-founder of Ōtautahi-based dance imprint and party facilitators HAVEN, globe-trotting techno artist Keepsakes shares a generosity of electronic club weapons with his new Impossible (Eating The Sun) EP via Turbo Recordings. "From funky forest rave bombs, to pounding industrial vocal attitude, to musings on the probability of swallowing celestial matter - this record pulls together a lot of threads I’ve been exploring in my 12 years of releasing music…"

The project of award-winning RNZ Music journalist Tony Stamp, TL Stamp's new single finds a spark of inspiration in director Steve De Jarnatt's curiously under-sung 1988 pre-nuclear holocaust film Miracle Mile. Listeners may find themselves sinking deep into the gently frisky instrumental beatscape, not unlike the helicopter swallowed by the La Brea Tar Pits during the movie's final moments. "The main melody for this song popped into my head one day fully-formed. Once I got it on tape I tried to find some chords that fit. It turned out one chord was fine. Miracle Mile is a 1988 film about imminent nuclear destruction. This song is not really about that, it’s more about the excitement of new beginnings, or getting jazzed about a fun holiday, something like that."

Sanoi completes the Aotearoa-based electronic producer's two part AUGENBLICK project with today's launch of SIDE B via Loop Electronic — a sonically exploratory nineteen track diptych, traversing "the boundaries between ambient soundscapes, downtempo grooves, and lo-fi beatwork, creating an experience that feels both cinematic and deeply personal."

Rightly praised by two UTR contributors in our 2025 Favourite Music Moments feature, and lighting up our summer SRN airwaves with recent single 'Undeniably Cool', Te Whanganui-a-Tara songwriter Mudgoose unlocks treasure trove of DIY pop gems, infectious punk skronk, whistlin' in the breeze alt-country balladry, and interstitial ambiance with his new album Chasing Horse. "I challenged myself to record the whole album on a Tascam tape recorder. It encouraged me to shed all the fat."

Dunedin songwriter, composer and visual artiste frog power snuck out what might be his catchiest banger to date — in a catalogue full of them — finding space to shine between dance-punk gang chants, YMO adjacent wizardry, Oingo Boingo new wave funk and psyched-out motorik with 'glued to the stewd'.

Ōtautahi alt-rockers this dog are on the prowl for the next few weeks, playing a triple date "World Tour" toasting the release of their emotive new anthem 'Likewise' — nab tickets for their Pōneke and hometown shows HERE.