Release Radar: Mainard Larkin, DC Maxwell, Jackaltheblackal, Hannah Everingham, Admiral Drowsy, DATA ANIMAL + More

Scroll downwards for new and recent Aotearoa highlights from Mainard Larkin, DC Maxwell, jackaltheblackal, Hannah Everingham, Admiral Drowsy, DATA ANIMAL, Raw Collective, Music Sucks and Bridge Burner.

On Mainard Larkin's new solo album Rattlesnake Boy, the Tāmaki Makaurau artist sheds the skin of earlier hip-hop persona Randa, striding confidently into the rustic realm of dust-kickin', alt-country tunesmithery with his love for wrestling intact. The first new recruit to the Lil' Chief Records roster in a decade, Larkin teams up with 2026 APRA Best Country Music Song finalist Shannon Fowler (Tom Lark) for the ten tune debut, a songwriting partnership which fits his personal lyrical obsessions to a tee. Fowler revealed: "The album begins with the feeling of being in a fight, moves through a period of self-reflection, and ends with the realization that you’ve got to appreciate what you’ve got."

DC Maxwell tackles infamous album number two with nigh-on religious passion, a theme which surfaces all throughout The Singer. Dedicated to passed friends Reuben Winter and Adison Whitley, there's echoes of the alt-country melodrama of the DC Maxwell's debut album Lone Rider, now twisted in the direction of heart-baring torch-balladry — roaming an emotional landscape somewhere between Nick Cave and The Cranberries. Featuring Louisville musical royalty Bonnie Prince Billy on earlier single 'Half Real', the Naarm-based Aotearoa songwriter (and former Roidz frontman) spilled the beans about The Singer in his must-read DC Dispatches sletter. "I hope they move you in some way. I hope they get stuck in your head, and you find yourself humming them in quiet moments. I hope the words I have written circle you like seagulls around a hot chip. I hope that these songs connect with the part of you that yearns for songs."

Putting his trusty SP-404 SX sampler through its paces in and out of the studio, Tāmaki rap maverick jackaltheblackal again hits paydirt with new single 'peking duck' — the first track revealed since 2025's standout GUNS AKIMBO (0-VII) — plus scenic local visuals to hammer home the excellence. "Runaway bird abruptly hung by the viaduct / Strung and braised, burning on his Bunsen my time was up / Rush the wave, servings on the southern, my rising luck… Flying duck, raised when the knife was blunt."

Impressing all those with ears to hear with back to back long-players Siempre Tiene Flores (2024) and Between Bodies (2022), Ōhinehou Lyttelton songwriter Hannah Everingham is back to keep us on our toes, sharing snazzy mutant guitar pop-bop 'Judi Dench'. Look out for Everingham's forthcoming album Big Surprise. Damn it seems like everybody is spitting lyrical fire today: "Everyone’s a crab walking around / looking for sand to dig down / everyone’s a fisher waiting to catch the best / are you special?"

Also hailing from Ōhinehou Lyttelton, Admiral Drowsy's new collection SHIFT immerses our ears in a primarily instrumental, ten track suite of immersive, improvisatory and textural works, crafted in Luke Redfern Scott's old port-side home from 2020 to 2022. "Shift is somewhat of a deviation towards more ambiguous electronically propelled music, in an effort to experiment with synthesisers and improvised playing. Most of the tracks featured on this album were built from one improvised effort on some instrument or another then built up from that initial take."

Mining a nearly forgotten yet infinitely rich vein of post-Chrome / Primal Scream cyber-scuzz, Berlin-based Aotearoa sonic voyager DATA ANIMAL's new album Future of Ghosts is out now via NYC / Berlin imprint Dedstrange (founded by Oliver Ackermann of A Place To Bury Strangers / Death By Audio). Sounding "really fucken good" to these ears, the twelve track collection bundles together "oddities and rarities recorded between 2022–2025. Blown-out ideas and raw mutated experiments stitched together into an archive from the hard drive and tape deck. Lo-fi drum machines, broken guitars, ghost synthesisers and warped magnetic tape."

Back in action after a few years downtime, Te Whanganui-a-Tara eight-piece Raw Collective's 'In the Clouds' delivers timely hip-hop / soul-funk sunergy, paving the way towards the big-band's new full-length album out this coming summer.

In possession of the best project name in this (or any) week's Release Radar, Whakatū Nelson's Music Sucks has indeed been "doing gods work / In the garage for hours" — echoing The Oblivians' sentiment "You've got to live the life you sing about in your song" — the hard graft reaping new slow-burner 'God's Work' and caffeinated fuzz-ripper 'Rack'.

Funerary Void is the incomprehensibly brutal four track final statement from Tāmaki Makaurau aural extremists Bridge Burner. "Bridge Burner is dead, but here is our death rattle, recorded back in 2022. Band members continue in The Second Death, Carrion Bride and Self Worth.