Release Roundup: DEB5000, Moana & The Tribe, The Bard Of Bollox, Leaping Tiger, Alphabethead x Displeasure + More

We're back in office looking "slightly suntanned" after one week away in Rarotonga, and the local music highlights have been piling up! Revisit our recent coverage of Reb Fountain, Te Huhu, Wiri Donna, Adam Hattaway, Thee Golden Geese, Tess Liautaud and Mild Orange, watch the season finale of LIVE MUSIC BAR starring WHO SHOT SCOTT, read our interviews with Wiri Donna and Jazmine Mary, and tuck into a treasure trove of new / recent Aotearoa (and related) releases from DEB5000, Moana & The Tribe, The Bard of Bollox, Leaping Tiger, the Lerm Werld Vol 1 djawesomebaxwahn collaboration, Alphabethead x Displeasure, Moider Mother, Wrought Material, and Lunavela.

Creators of one of the finest (and sadly most resonant) Aotearoa punk anthems of this decade so far — 'Bad Guts' from 2021's DUBUTANTE EP — "four rowdy skanks from Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland" DEB5000 make a rawkus welcome return. Their new LUXURY TOUR EP starts in significant style with '24/7 Mimosas', DEB5000 raise a glass to 'Crop Top' season, yell "I'm a cranky bitch / I like to look like a witch" and wave goodbye to earthbound jerks in 'No Dicks in Space'. Stay tuned for the limited lathe cut edition and go catch their Halloweenie gig at 605 Morningside this Saturday.

Icon of Aotearoa hip-hop and driving force of the must-see Te Ao with Moana current affairs show on Māori Television, Moana Maniapoto reunited with Moana & The Tribe artistic partners Paddy Free and Scotty Morrison on their new album ONO (meaning "six"). "I’ve always been into fusing haka with hip hop, mōteatea with soul, taonga pūoro with western instruments, Māori with English, classical with contemporary, passion with politics. I love that it’s normal now. It wasn’t always. My friend and manager Sol de Sully has taken me and my band around the world to strange lands, where we saw ourselves in the people we met. ONO builds on those connections. It celebrates solidarity, shared colonial experience, and the rich diversity of Indigenous cultures".

Ruler of Tāmaki Makaurau's student radio airwaves, poet and broadcaster The Bard Of Bollox aka Robert Page joins forces with 2024 Best Electronic Artist Tūī award winner Amamelia (Van Staden & Böhm) on Vessel Of Nonsense — a six track manifesto of spoken word / dance musings / scorching barbs ("Mark Richardson") out now via Sunreturn. "For me poems should get a point across without being heavy or preachy. I hope they make people think and hopefully question. The tracks on the EP cover lots from the COVID era, my personal health journey, the state of humanity and how about trying to sort our differences out. Each track is a reaction to what's happening and been happening... The whole Vessel Of Nonsense thing was my realisation that after a year of Mindtrench, I was talking about amazing scientific discoveries or animal stories, and all I could remember was dog splooting (Google it). That led me to think. All I am is a vessel with just nonsense in it".

Recipient of the 2022 Best Electronic Artist Tūī award, Leaping Tiger aka Jacob Park reemerged from his London studio with the sun-splashed house / techno grooves of new single 'Aquasavana'. "Show your Mum!"

"IT'S JUST LIKE A LERM WERLD PARTY BUT AT HOME!!!!!!!!" That's the new Lerm Werld Vol 1 djawesomebaxwahn collaboration — seven fun-inciting trax from Tāmaki Makaurau producers djbax, AndWahn and djawesomechillguy25, aka "the hottest EP this side of Hobbiton.... Many have even claimed it is the EP of the summer",

Proving once again that Whanganui seems to be where it's currently "at" when it comes to boundary-pushing Aotearoa releases, Bad Taste production maestro Alphabethead teams up with Displeasure (the anarcho-synth-punk aspect of Unsanitary Napkin) on protest anthem 'Bottomfeeder [Club Mix]'. "Thematically this song is a critique of the hypocrisy and callousness of Christopher Luxon referring to beneficiaries as bottom feeders, when he and his cronies are the ultimate corporate welfare parasites living off tax breaks and subsidies".

A trio that I would make a large conceptual leap in presuming they "might enjoy Halloween," Ōtautahi no-wave splatter-punks Moider Mother served up two tunes in time for the spooky season — ominous shriekfest 'Hierarchy of Grottos' and a cover of Into The Void's classic 'Surf's Up' ("let's get girls").

Leading lights of Aotearoa's sonically extreme underground and beyond, Wrought Material today unleashed the debut collection from Australian "idiosyncratic black death metal" propagators Aethyrvorous. "The enigmatic Australian entity known as Aethyrvorous emerges from a 15 year slumber, marking its return with the full length project Akephalic Palingenesis... a 51 minute opus in 6 movements, building upon the foundation laid by the band’s eponymous 2009 demo. Expansive production and labyrinthine song structures guide initiates through a journey of primordial introspection and aggression, sonically accompanied by an idiosyncratic black death metal alchemy drawn from the wells of Saxony, Kansas City and Queensland et al. A distinctive amalgamation solely that of Aethyrvorous. Akephalic Palingenesis demands initiates to light the flames of the sun that will nurture them, or the hell that will consume them".

The project of Collapsing Cities frontman Steve Mathieson, the video for Lunavela's tender-crooning new tune 'Mauled by Lions' was filmed by director Tristan Ogden at Auckland Zoo. "Mathieson says he was jet-lagged and didn't want to appear in it, but Ogden managed to convince him to make a cameo".