Release Roundup: XRVR, Mechanism, Riki Pirihi & Abigail Aroha Jensen, Lontalius, Tali, Thagomizer + More

These days have been whizzing past as we enter the final stretch of 2024. Rewind back to this week's news coverage of The Phoenix Foundation, Zuke and TE KAAHU, buckle up for next week's monumental UTR end of year features, and delve downwards for more local new / recent release highlights from XRVR, Mechanism, Riki Pirihi & Abigail Aroha Jensen, Lontalius, Sonya Waters, Torben Tilly, Thagomizer, Ingrid and the Ministers, Tali, and PARK RD.

Are you an Aotearoa artist / imprint releasing something new soon? Let us know! Send your PR details to editor@undertheradar.co.nz.

XRVR aka Kurtis Champion hits the bullseye with the title of his debut album The Noise is not the Problem. and the bolshy sonics unlocked within. Anyone who has caught XRVR live knows the Whanganui synth-punk is an unstoppable force, onstage and off. Fans and slowpokes alike are now treated to a full course of crunchy beats, heavily distorted synths, whiplash hooks and firebrand wordplay — just in time for summer party season.

2023 IMNZ Classic Record recipient and pioneering figure in Aotearoa techno music, Mechanism yesterday unveiled a landmark release — a freshly unearthed second album, three decades following Mechanism: Morningstar. "Fall of the false self" follows the narrative immediately after Morningstar, and similar to it: it has a hint of distortion; it tells simultaneously a timeline of dramatic geo-political events, scenarios of spiritual warfare playing out between cosmic forces, and the individual's search for Freedom, Self and the Absolute. The material for the album was recorded in the mid-1990's, which would have been the ideal time to release it... next best time is on the 30th anniversary". 

T​ū​piki is a new collaborative record by Riki Pirihi and Abigail Aroha Jensen, laid down at Tāmaki Makaurau's experimental music / sound hub Audio Foundation during their autumn recording residency in 2023. Mastered by Rashad Becker and available on limited edition 12" vinyl adorned with artwork by Susan Te Kahurangi-King, the album officially launches at tonight's Noa Records Presents - Mauri Oro: [We Owe You One!!!] celebration at AF (tickets available HERE). "The conceptual framework for the album is inspired by the journey Maui took to climb the 12 stairs of heaven, Te Ara Poutama. Each track covers a realm which Maui climbs to retrieve the baskets of knowledge. Each track is dubbed in three, and each track plays out to 3.33. During its recording, the album was divided into four parts dictated by certain realms of the soul - Puku, Manawa, Korokoro and Ūpoko. These realms anchored a method of playing for both Riki and Abigail, introducing a connecting point in the philosophy of hauora and sound associated with The Four Doors of Oro."

Beloved by listeners worldwide, Aotearoa songwriter / producer Eddie Johnston (Race Banyon) concludes an emotionally disarming run of 2024 releases with his sixth Lontalius long player How Can We Lose When We're So Sincere — out this week with slipstream visuals for album closer 'Apologise / City'.

Te Whanganui-a-Tara electronic artist Sonya Waters shared the second half of her double album Inside the Microcosm — volume ii contains eight elegantly executed works of "synth music intended to declutter mind".

Easter Piano Meditations: Parts 1​—​4 is an immersive suite of works by Aotearoa sound explorer Torben Tilly (Droszkhi) — first recorded at Tāmaki Makaurau's Kenneth Myers Centre in 2021 and "commissioned to accompany artist Dane Mitchell's Post Hoc broadcast artwork for NTS Radio, with support from The Chartwell Project, April 2022".

The world might already know and love dino synth music, but are we ready for the reptilian micro-genre's doomy next evolution? Thagomizer asks and answers this question for you with Dinosaur Drone II — 'Smoke Rises From The Deccan Traps' — a titanosaur-scale excursion into Land That Time Forgot atmospheric ambience and glacial bone-crunch. "A long, slow, extinction-level event to the soundtrack of apocalyptic synth".

Ingrid Saker of Ingrid and the Ministers gifts fans a stripped-back set of bluesy tunes that could give Lyttelton's finest a real run for their money on Last Train Blues. "These are not band songs. I recorded them with my friend Dan Kiellerup here in Naarm over the Winter. They feel better suited to a simple, acoustic existence. Hope you enjoy them and Merry Xmassss".

Currently in the midst of her 'Flip The Script' 20 Year Anniversary tour, award-winning Aotearoa drum and bass figurehead Tali dropped five new tracks designed to move bodies to dance on her self-released Resistance EP. "Every track is a nod to some sort of resistance against the status quo — an invitation to rebel against the narrative, whether it be society's expectations, the media, politicians, the patriarchy — even the music industry itself!"

Headliners at last night's Eat Ur Greens fundraiser event in Tāmaki Makaurau, PARK RD unleashed a new video shot / edited by Chloe Tredgett for 'English Boy' – the punky first official single since their debut album The Novel dropped in May.