Release Roundup - Jonathan Bree, The Forbin Project, Devils Gate Outfit + More

It's nearly about time to saddle up and mosey into the weekend, but before we descend en masse upon Saturday's Record Store Day lolly scramble of releases there's one important task to take care of  — our Friday Release Roundup. Let's revisit this week's news coverage of Reb Fountain, Totems, We Will Ride Fast, King Ketchup, tei. and NO COMPLY featuring INF, then scroll downwards for even more crucial recent Aotearoa cuts from Jonathan Bree, The Forbin Project, Blair Parkes, Diana Tribute, eeling, Ron Gallipoli and Devils Gate Outfit.

Launched late last week to instant international acclaim via Lil’ Chief Records Pre-Code Hollywood is the fifth solo album from bemasked Tāmaki Makaurau maestro Jonathan Bree. Currently galavanting around Europe and the UK on an extensive Northern Hemisphere tour with band, the former Brunettes helmsman's spellbinding new record features contributions from such significant talents as newly crowned Taite Music Prize winner Princess Chelsea and Chic's Nile Rodgers (!) — you can order the vinyl LP and CD edition via the Bandcamp link.

A fortnight since the low-poly rhythmic workouts of her Futureworld! EP, Amamelia producer Amelia Berry's The Forbin Project has already attracted praise from literary circles for the subdued sonics of a poem by frank o'hara — "Please listen very quietly... Ambient pastoral music to accompany my favourite poem by Frank O'Hara - Digression On Number 1, 1948".

Ōtautahi's prolific creative powerhouse Blair Parkes (Running Club) returns with his first new collection of fuzz-drenched tunes since December 2022, hook-packed new eight track album breezy — which was in fact recorded over the past two years in drizzly New Brighton, with Ryan Fisherman on drums and Miss Mercury on vocals.

Released a couple of weeks back via underground Aotearoa imprint Freezing Works, Bellwether is the sonically startling, swirling and alluring long-awaited release from antipodean collective Diana Tribute — featuring members / ex-members of Ave Teth, Sharpie Crows, GPOGP and Civil Union. Grip the limited cassette edition via the Bandcamp link.

Launched by Freezing Works concurrently with the Diana Tribute release, London-based Aotearoa experimental techno artist eeling's pulsing Terra Insana II follows up "the aptly named Terra Insana (2020) & Organs Informationized, released in 2021 on the cult Berlin record label Detriti Records" — featuring remixes by fellow travellers in sound Grecco Romank and Ron Gallipoli.

Speaking of Ron Gallipoli, the inimitable Aotearoa avant-crooner recently dropped a highly covetable triple cassette box set encompassing The Tropical​-​Industrial Trilogy — his three solo albums Ron Gallopoli Loves You All (2014), Agrokomplex (2015) and Prisnarchitect (2019), "combined in a very limited edition triple-cassette rave-package." You know you need to order your own copy right HERE.

The all-star Aotearoa improvisational jazz collective of Anthony Donaldson, Steve Roche, David Donaldson, Cory Champion (aka Borrowed cs), Tom Callwood, Blair Latham and Daniel Beban (of Orchestra Of Spheres), Devils Gate Outfit were showcased on the fifth edition of Kiwijahzz's Jazz from the Underground Nightclubs of Aotearoa series — which has deservedly received a limited new vinyl LP edition featuring artwork by Julien Dyne just in time for Record Store Day. Get in before the rush by ordering your copy via the Bandcamp link yee-haw!