Release Roundup: Hasji, Tom Scott, Serebii, Crook, FERBY, Big Sigh, Pumice, Terry Shore, The Veils

Scroll downwards for new / recent Aotearoa highlights from Hasji, Tom Scott, Serebii, Crook, FERBY, Big Sigh, Pumice, Terry Shore and The Veils.

Explorer in sound and spirit, Tāmaki gorge bootist Hasji's (Te Arawa, Ingarani) eagerly awaited collection Pahū is a sublime new addition to the Noa Records catalogue. Seven deeply immersive, textural and toms-driven tracks, feeling equally at home in adventuresome club and outdoorsy contexts, this listener also found Pahū to be well suited for working up a good sweat at the local gym (on my Bandcamp playlist after Los Thuthanaka). There's also a stunning video for '2b real' featuring Urtica Ferox, directed, filmed and edited by Sina Leo, viewable over on Instagram HERE. The kaupapa of Pahū is shared over on Hasji's Bandcamp page, here's an excerpt: "... 'Pahū' offers tohu (signs) for conscious and unconscious reflections. The thunderous yet now uncommon voice of the pahū (Māori slit gong), which was traditionally used to bring people together during times of tumult / wariness and to signal the start of a time of peace, offers a lot of themes to reflect upon from our current time, as well as in the pasts and futures rippling outward from here."

Finalist for the 2026 Taite Music Prize, Avondale icon Tom Scott dropped soulful and dreamy new cut 'If You Knew', a standout from his new Bandcamp-only Demos And Voice Memos collection. You can catch his Self Untitled tour hitting Te Whanganui-a-Tara and Kirikiriroa this coming May (aka NZ Music Month / Te Marama Puoro o Aotearoa). "Here are some stupid love songs that will do absolutely nothing to help change anything. Let's all dissociate and pretend love is all we need for 15 minutes."

Achieving significant streaming success with 2025's roundly adored Dime, Serebii reemerges with contemplative and sparkling slice of mutating club-friendly neo-soul 'MIA' — finished in a single day! "MIA” shrugs off the idea of arrival altogether, Jimper, an Aussie Labrador who took a wrong turn, bounds along, ignoring the laws of geography entirely. A track for when directions argue in multiple languages. It opens ambient, like a compass on a smoke break; punchy drums slice through, and a simple, intimate vocal hook drifts into focus, guiding you through a place that never quite sits still".

Crook are Tāmaki Makaurau's force four of Aki (Girls Pissing on Girls Pissing, Horror in Clay), Hugh (Alec, Caroles), Fraser (Heroes for Sale, Juiceroof) and Aaron (Saturnian Noise Collective, The Pleasure Majenta). Out today with discombobulating visuals by Flip for Garth, 'Language 2.0' is a sonically slapping lead track from their upcoming debut album Murderous Intent, out in full on 17th April from T & M — whose central city alleyway gigs have become mandatory occasions. Word on the street is Crook are playing soon with US band Drook!

Lyttelton rapper / producer FERBY collaborates with 2025 Silver Scroll co-winner KOMMI on smouldering self-released new cut 'TAKE IT BACK' — launched with suitably stark neo-gothic visuals courtesy of Connor Pritchard.

Radiating blissful mid-afternoon sunergy at Bethells Beach a few weekends back for Sunreturn's summer festival, Big Sigh are the Kirikiriroa duo of Rachel Hope Peary and Nicholas Joseph Walsh. 'Tether' is the lead single and title track from their debut EP out on 2nd May, merging folk-adjacent lyrical contemplations with transcendent drone. Peary shared, "I wrote this song as a mantra for myself to drop into when I got overwhelmed. It is short and repeats so that I can sing it repeatedly as an anchor of sorts."

14.8.06 at Bomb Shelter Davis,CA is a self-explanatory new live album, documenting Pumice back in solo Stefan Neville mode nearly twenty years ago, all lumped together into one big continuous track so you can't disrupt the magic. "The Bomb Shelter was actually that. A corrugated iron tank buried in a suburban backyard. You climbed down a ladder into it. You could fit maybe 20 people? It was THE place to play in Davis."

A bona fide legend of Wellington's DIY underground, Terry Shore's new Spunky Funky Beat EP is finally up online in time for Bandcamp Friday, following his CD release party a few weeks ago. One of this listener's favourite local pop-rock craftsmen, only a putz could even attempt to deny the sing-along fun-power present on Shore's 'Spunky Funky Beat', 'Rock On 2000', 'Hot Cover Legged Baby' and lovely closing ballad 'I'll Be Your Angel'.

Maintaining a prolific run following 2025's Asphodels and 2023's ...And Out Of The Void Came Love, The Veils helmed by Finn Andrews' new anthem 'Lungs' allows a ray of sunshine to cut through the melancholy — heralding their forthcoming long player Fragile World, out on 19th June via V2 Records. "I make each album, generally, as a kind of atonement for the last. Asphodels was so quiet and introspective, I think I just wanted to make something strident and full of life for a goddamn change. I wrote the lyric for this years ago, while I still lived in London and I still smoked fags."