Release Radar: TL Stamp, Troy Kingi, Purple Pilgrims, Fox Moss, Jazmine Mary, HIGH ALTAR, The Datsuns + More

There's been lots of water under the bridge since our last Release Radar, so let's get up to speed with a tour of local highlights of the past few weeks with a bumper expanded edition. Revisit our coverage of Troy Kingi, Ha The Unclear, Sulfate, So So Modern, Memory Foam, Christoph El Truento, Midwave Breaks, HINA, DARTZ, Money Sock, The Response, Swallow The Rat, Caru, Pieces of Molly, Gareth Thomas, Timothy Blackman, Thee Golden Geese, Horn, The Sour, Out Of Luck, The Big Fresh Collective, NOXO, Slumbug, Dolly Possum and Grifthorse, then dive into more new / recent Aotearoa releases from TL Stamp, Troy Kingi (again!), Purple Pilgrims, Fox Moss, Jazmine Mary, HIGH ALTAR, The Datsuns, Salt Water Criminals, BEST BETS, Miriam Clancy, Instant Fantasy x Yvois, VÏKAE, Mali Mali, and frog power.

The production moniker of RNZ broadcaster and award-winning music journalist Tony Stamp, TL Stamp's new long player is an ideal soundtrack for cruising around today's sunny, lightly breezy Tāmaki Makaurau. Out via Sunreturn, creases features fifteen beat-orbiting mood piece miniatures, revealing a particularly filmic sensibility and tonal complexity as the album unfolds. These trip-hop adjacent tunes wouldn't sound out of place on Mo Wax, Pussyfoot, or perhaps Aotearoa's currently dormant Strangelove Music — enjoy animator Liam Maguren's elegant minimal visualisations for the title tune.

Taite Music Prize winner Troy Kingi follows the unveiling of his 007-themed new single 'Golden Gun' with a suitably radiant visual offering. The tenth and final instalment of his famously ambitious 10|10|10 project – ten albums, across ten genres, over ten years — Yort, Ignik Yort is a album of theme songs for "twelve imaginary James Bond films" recorded with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, out in full on 27th November.

The Sun and now The Moon. Gazing deeply upon that heavenly object from which dreams may emerge, Purple Pilgrims 'Look to the Moon' for the final single from their new album Given to the Night, jointly releasing via Flying Nun Records and UK tastemakers AD93 on 27th November. Director Britt Walton's visuals are transcendent as the song suggests — you can catch Purple Pilgrims bringing the magic at Kāhui St David’s on 5th December, as part of the Strange Universe: Summer Edition maxi-festival.

A hyperreal meditation on timeless mystery, Fox Moss' self-animated video for 'ANCIENT STONES' is a mesmeric reminder of the excellence of the Te Whanganui-a-Tara multimedia artist's new fantasy synth album Eternal Veil.

Recipient of the 2022 Best Independent Debut award and finalist for this year's Taite Music Prize for 2025's I Want To Rock And Roll, Jazmine Mary leans towards the rustic folk strum of their Pony Baby project (with Arahi) on 'Shower Beer'. An intimate first song revealed from Jazmine Mary's new "country album" Country Milk, featuring contributors Cass Basil and Vera Ellen, the clip for 'Shower Beer' finds the artist dancing a jig with acting star Yvette Parsons (Mum, I'm Alien Pregnant, Educators) at what appears to be Tāmaki's Old Folks Ass., directed by Ali Burns. We're forward to Country Milk's independent launch in the near future.

Now out digitally as well as on vinyl LP, your presence is a danger to the self is the debut album from locked-in, free-form heavy psych duo HIGH ALTAR, the guitar / drums sonic team supremo of Taipua Adams and Brendan Moran. Sounding thrilling to these ears, I chatted with Moran about the new record at length for 95bFM Freak The Sheep right HERE — catch them letting rip this Saturday at Last Place in Kirikiriroa (tickets HERE).
 

Ripping the lid off their eighth studio album Moonstruck Man next Friday 13th November, Aotearoa rock gods The Datsuns toasted Halloween with their spooky rock stomper 'Glide Like A Ghost'.

Invited to open for Australian alt-rock superstar Courtney Barnett this month in Kirikiriroa, Salt Water Criminals swiftly followed up 2025's top notch I Believe in Dog with brand new studio long player Sit Tight Spin Out. Reuben Scott with Damin McCabe (Awning), Louis Graham (Daffodils) and Mitchell Innes (Office Dog) follow their muse through zig-zagging zones of jangle / fuzz / power-pop and post-punk, sounding positively inspired as they pile hooks dizzyingly high.
 

No stranger to a catchy number themselves, BEST BETS bound back with 'More Good News', a pointed power-pop ripper heralding their next tune-bundle Monolithic Discipline, out in full on 5th December. "Is it an album? Is it a compilation? Is it both? Is it neither? Does it matter? It is definitely 12 songs that have never been released on vinyl before. It is definitely a collection of songs conceived and created over time by humans. It is definitely a miracle that any band can stay together for 10 years just for the joy of making music."

The second single revealed from NYC-based Aotearoa songwriter Miriam Clancy's imminent album Final Girl, ‘Janis, You’re Evil’ expands in scale from hushed suspense to rock grandeur, "at once an exorcism and a microscope on the inherent power imbalance between sexes, victim shaming/blaming and the injustices that inevitably result" — complete with spectral visuals by Winger Bros, filmed at Gerritsen Beach in Brooklyn.

Ōtautahi multi-media artist Gemma Syme (STONEHENGE AOTEAROA,dORKWIND) aka Instant Fantasy is marking the tenth anniversary 2015's The Wet EP with a cavalcade of remixes by friends and fellow travellers, out in full on 4th December via Sunreturn. First up is Berlin-based Aotearoa electronic producer Yvois' pulsing and playful reimagining of 'I’ve Given Up On You', travelling from cavernous trepidation to ecstatic peace. "Gemma’s original track feels firmly rooted in the grief and pain of that moment of reckoning, and I wanted to evoke the other side of that coin, the liberating joy and ecstasy of the moment when you’re finally free from someone who you’ve spent far too much of yourself on."

Unveiled the night before Halloween, Tāmaki Makaurau dark electro-pop artist VÏKAE's new WELCOME TO THE END OF THE WORLD EP is a dancefloor burning "protest pop record about living through a time that feels increasingly impossible to explain."

Performing with visiting NYC songwriter Allegra Krieger at Whammy Bar on 2nd December as part of Strange Universe: Summer Edition, Tāmaki Makaurau songcrafter Ben Tolich has shared a generosity of reflective ballads on Mali Mali's new double album Psychic Acorns. "I just wanted things to flow and let my subconscious do more of the work, focusing more on the overall feeling of the music... "There is no intentional theme or message to the album but by coincidence the first and last song are both the most direct songs, lyrically bookending the album. The first being a realisation of the dark place I found myself in and the last being a sort of acceptance that there are often no clear answers."

Released ahead of Halloween and still spooky as freaking heck, frog power's 'ghost night' is a devilishly infectious DIY shock rock pop bop.