Release Roundup: Princess Chelsea & The Dream Warriors, Frau Knotz x Amamelia, c cada, Lorazepam, Secret Sorcery, Data Animal + More

It is sizzling hot at UTR HQ in Tāmaki Makaurau as we sail towards the weekend. Scroll downwards for new / recent Aotearoa highlights from Princess Chelsea & The Dream Warriors, Frau Knotz x Amamelia, c cada, Lorazepam, Secret Sorcery, Data Animal, Infinite Hex, WHO SHOT SCOTT, L.A. Mitchell, Adam McGrath, and frog power.

Winner of the 2023 Taite Music Prize for her most recent studio album Everything Is Going To Be Alright, Princess Chelsea and her tremendously talented The Dream Warriors share the bill on their new live album Live At Studio Two, launched with an accompanying concert film directed by Marc Swadel. Recorded at London's legendary Abbey Road Studio Two, fans across the universe can enjoy these definitive big band renditions of classics from throughout PC's oeuvre so far (I'm loving the plush take on 'Monkey Eats Bananas'), but only a select few will be able to squeeze into her limited capacity pop up show at Tāmaki's Public Bar on 12th March. Previewing "even more new songs" than Monday's also cosy alley gig, get your tickets immediately HERE via UTR, or risk spending forever in a disenchanting fog of FOMO — all proceeds to Palestinian Childrens Relief Fund.

Te Manu Taki Tāhiko o te Tau (Best Electronic Artist) Tūī winner Amamelia puts a fresh spin on New Plymouth futurist Frau Knotz's 'Victory Dance on ZR3', an ace bleep-bloop standout from 2025's Digital Plastic Surgery EP. Premiered via global tastemakers Mixmag earlier this week, this playful next evolution injects the original with hyped raver energy, complete wth tarot card animated visualiser and triple ending fakeout — nice. Frau Knotz exclaimed, "What she’s done with ‘Victory Dance on ZR3’ is marvellous and fun — further riffing on my alien theme by giving it a voice and a lyric!”

c cada is the new solo moniker of Recitals alum Carla Camilleri fka CC(TV), based these days in Berlin, who unfurled an immersive and beguiling debut collection of songs and adjacent textural sound works, entitled words later: recordings 2020 - 2025. "Most of these tracks remain in their original improvised form, many without real words. A mix of sounds & experimentations from years of learning and mind changing."

On the whopper bill for the free, all-ages Newtown Festival 2026 in Te Whanganui-a-Tara on 8th March, Lorazepam unites with Lochie Noble of crossingwater / Mirror Ritual / The Spectre Collective fame for oceanic and emotive dreamscape ballad 'Draw'.

One of Aotearoa's foremost practitioners of the darkened sonic art of dungeon synth, Secret Sorcery's new epic The Nine Kingdoms of the Undying "explores her own interpretation of hell and its horrors, using heavily distorted synthesizers and grainy dark ambience to convey a bleak, oppressing atmosphere."

Berlin-based Aotearoa cyber-punk badasses Data Animal reimagine the baggy era on 'Here Comes My Mirage', an overdriven late-season scorcher from their forthcoming new oddities and rarities collection Future of Ghosts — out in May via Dedstrange Records.

Te Whanganui-a-Tara cybergrind specialist Infinite Hex's new Unrelenting Punishment confronts our trash political news cycle with a head-hammering two track assault, featuring guest vocals by Orange Roughy. "2 tracks from a wider forthcoming collection of sub-60 second tracks built upon field recordings of a Cricut plotting/cutting machine."

Already on a productive streak in 2026, Iraqi-born / Tāmaki-raised rapper and producer WHO SHOT SCOTT keeps the energy bumping with his not so rose-tinted second single of the year 'BAD GIRLS' — reuniting with director Connor Pritchard for the accompanying video. "BAD GIRLS’ IS ONE OF THE MOST PERSONAL SONGS I’VE EVER MADE. IT’S ABOUT BEING 15, HIGH SCHOOL SOCIAL HIERARCHIES, AND THAT STRANGE SHIFT WHEN SOMEONE YOU WERE EXTREMELY CLOSE WITH SUDDENLY FEELS LIKE A COMPLETE STRANGER."

One half of Ōtautahi songwriting duo Terrible Sons (with husband Matt Barus), Lauren Barus aka L.A. Mitchell's new album Meaningful Work is a vibrant alt-pop song cycle twelve years in the making, produced with the expert ear of Mark Perkins (co-producer of Marlon Williams' award-winning Te Whare Tīwekaweka). "It is the integration of being young and feeling too much and not knowing where to put those layers of feeling. I’m 45 now, I’m married, and a mother of 2. It’s taken me this long to process some of those memories and sensations. This process was about reconnecting to my physical experience of the world and reconciling the history within myself.....to return and collect the parts of me that were stuck there. And it is also just about making music that I want to dance and sing out loud to."

Winner of Te Manu Taki Ahurea o te Tau (Best Folk Artist) at the 2024 Aotearoa Music Awards, Ōtautahi songwriting stalwart Adam McGrath (The Eastern) throws down the gauntlet with 'Which Side Are You On?' plus gently strumming B-side ballad 'Be True (Reprise)' — the first single revealed from his forthcoming new album Wrecker Songs, out in full on 1st May. "The single is a burning reworking of the union song ‘Which Side Are You On?’, featuring in the truest of folk tradition new verses about 1951 and the villain of the era, Sid Holland, as well as samples from Watersiders’ Union boss and worker spokesman Jock Barnes."

"New frog power = gotta listen" is this writer's credo. '2 dolphins in love' embodies nature's beauty via three plus minutes of wonked DIY pop majesty — "I'm dreaming bout 2 dolphins in love" — heck yes.