Release Roundup: Fazerdaze, Elliott Dawson, Las Tetas, AW, Te Tokotoru, O & The Mo + More

The pre-Christmas party calendar is filling up fast and the local end of year releases are piling up. Revisit this week's news coverage of Van Staden & Böhm, Barnard's Star, Hallelujah Picassos, Womb, Swallow the Rat, Tessa de Lyon (Mystery Waitress) and FĒI LÍN, read our interviews with Bulletbelt, Grecco Romank x SPECK Comics / Misheard Records, and Kerretta, then delve downwards for more new / recent highlights from Fazerdaze, Elliott Dawson, Las Tetas, AW, Te Tokotoru, O & The Mo, Nadia Reid, Lucky Boy^, and Paul Cathro.

The seven year journey to Aotearoa dream / fuzz-pop star Fazerdaze aka Amelia Murray's second album Soft Power is finally complete. It's out in the world today via Butterfly Records, with an aptly exuberant video for new single 'So Easy', directed by Rollinos and Lanning Sally. "This is what I created during the darkest, loneliest, most tumultuous years of my life – entering womanhood, navigating the world, the music industry, and what I thought was love. In my scariest moments, this album was my anchor for hope, purpose, and light. I am so relieved and content to finally share with you; Soft Power".

Doons frontman and lead guitarist of Wiri Donna's band, Elliott Dawson announces his second solo album Certain Death is on the way with the genre-melting, gripping drama of new single 'Calling Time'. In possession of a singularly majestic croon and pushing the boat out like few other local talents right now, we can collectively look forward to Certain Death from Dawson this coming April. "This record took a lot out of me. I did a lot of staring at the ceiling and scratching my head, like do I really want to go there? Some things are better left in the ground, and this one felt like exhuming my own remains".

Absolute legends of Tāmaki Makaurau's early '10s era, when the gigs ran insanely late and rowdy, the long-lost album from Las Tetas is finally getting an official release on 29th November via 1:12 Records, just ahead of their reunion at The Others Way Festival 2024. Experience the garage-pop glory of lead single 'Betrayal', preorder Charlotte Gallichan-Stewart (Horror in Clay), Kristal G (Heart Attack Alley) and Lucy Emanuel's (The Glass Picture) self-titled long player HERE, and mosey along to their launch at Flying Out on Friday 29th December. "Rumours of their debut album’s arrival were rife. A stage shared with Unknown Mortal Orchestra had led to the band’s bassist taking on production duties, and the future was meant to make history. Then, one day, Las Tetas vanished without a trace, and their album with them... Now, after a decade shrouded in suspicion and lore, during which the band members have been engaged in spiritualism, librarianism and child bearing, the fabled collection of songs spanning 2010 to 2013, has finally been reclaimed, and is set to arrive at long last".

Ruling Aotearoa's studio airwaves with the pared-back sonics of SIMPLE SONGS, Die! Die! Die! frontman Andrew Wilson today unleashes a second triple pack of tunes from his AW project. Again joined by Stefan Neville (Pumice, O/PUS) on drums and recording duties, CAUGHT presents three distinct sides to AW — carving out poetic, unfussy spaces between motorik / post-punk dynamism, southern gothic atmospheres and noise-rock scuzz. Keep ears peeled for AW's debut album in 2025. "I am trying not to overthink or overproduce these songs. Walk away when it feels right. I’m happy to preserve the flaws and find beauty in the immediacy of Stefan often hearing / playing the tracks for the first time".

Te Tokotoru are the heavy rocking super trio of Live Music Bar star ARAHI (Pony Baby), William Devine (Fane Flaws, Tropical Downbeat Orchestra) and Iraia Whakamoe (The Nudge, Fly My Pretties), unleashing their new te reo anthem ‘Ka Whiua Ngā Ringa’ (meaning to ‘throw hands’ or ‘to fight’) — "a poignant and timely call to action for the preservation and revitalization of te reo Māori" — while our coalition government fumbles their obligations to Te Tiriti o Waitangi for all to witness. “This theme is strongly reflected throughout the waiata, most succinctly in the chorus: ‘Kōrero i te reo rangatira, kia kore e ngaro’, which means ‘use te reo as often as possible os it cannot be lost or forgotten”. Experience the accompanying clip, filmed at Pōneke's San Fran by Mark Russell.

Enchanting listeners with September's 'Make Way For The Sun', O & The Mo resurface with new single 'The High' and again achieve giddy dream-pop heights — smartly stretching out to let the song's moonlit atmospherics and hip-wiggling grooves do their thing. The Pōneke duo's forthcoming album Make Way For The Sun will be out this summer on 31st January.

UK-based Aotearoa songwriting star Nadia Reid unfurled the third single from her upcoming album Enter Now Brightness (out on 7th February via Chrysalis Records), shifting gears into uptempo rock zones on 'Hotel Santa Cruz' — roaming suburban realms in the accompanying lyric video by Shea McCrystal. "I wrote this in Tenerife and it turned out to be quite hooky. It’s just a series of questions. I feel quite moved at the end, with the line ‘You are everything I’d like to be’. I always give myself goosebumps when I perform that line. But I’m not sure who I’m referring to. Sometimes I think it’s Angus or my children, or maybe this is a God thing, or it’s just my imagination".

Core member of Phoebe Rings and Princess Chelsea's band The Dream Warriors, Lucky Boy^ casually recently shared immersive nine track collection Sketches for video games — "Music that I would put in my video game if I made a video game. Very Disasterpeace referential (he rules)." Maybe hit mute on your next Hyper Light Drifter Switch session and crank up this instead?

Paul Cathro's zippy and hook-drenched new power-pop single 'Distance' also features a Dream Warriors member, in this case Joshua Worthington-Church (Mammalien, Exploding Rainbow Orchestra) on bass, with Jamie Hannah on drums. Officially the first single from a long-awaited, as-yet unnamed new album, go catch the Ha The Unclear co-founder with band at Ralph's on Dominion Road in Tāmaki Makaurau on 24th November (grab tickets HERE), plus special guest Créme Jéan playing solo.