Summer Release Roundup: O/PUS, Uncle Quentin, P.H.F, Phoebe Rings, The Veils, Glitz Club, WAIWHAI. + More

We're back in UTR HQ feeling a mite refreshed and we couldn't possibly start the year off without a bumper roundup of highlights from the summer break period, before Aotearoa's showbiz rat-race fires up again. Salute those who gift us tunes during the annual music promo dead zone and delve downwards for new / recent local releases from O/PUS, Uncle Quentin, P.H.F, Phoebe Rings, Glitz Club, WAIWHAI., The Veils, Mim Jensen, Cruelly, The Electrons, Jeff Henderson, P Wits & L Xerox, and the new Finn Johansson documentary What A Way To Make A Living.

On the all-killer bill for Port Noise 2025 in Ōhinehou Lyttelton on 1st March (grab tickets HERE), O/PUS are the Captain Planet-like combo of Liz Mathews, Beth Dawson, Jade Farley and Stefan Neville. The Tāmaki Makaurau quartet combine swirling melodies, skull-trepanning stomp and ritualistic incantations on their dimension-ripping debut single 'Ancient Ancient'. Here's even more good news: "From forthcoming Out At Sea, The Water Is Deep LP on 1:12 Records due 2025".

Rumour has it in another life he penned a gothic ballad that led to a finalist placing for Aotearoa's prestigious APRA Silver Scroll Award. Bemasked icon of Ōtautahi's musical community, Uncle Quentin returned home from Naarm during summer to celebrate the launch of his third solo album / mixtape SINGS BALLADS AND BLUES via Melted Ice Cream, and has just been announced for Port Noise 2025 in Ōhinehou Lyttelton. "Throughout the mixtape the songs veer from his standard themes of queer disgust to more tender love songs, inhabiting many gray spaces in between. Facing retro-futuristic environmental and interpersonal fears, Uncle Quentin hones in on a 1950s-cum-1993 aesthetic, smearing everything in sight with Vaseline, record crackle, static, glitter, nifty lead guitar breaks and analog hiss." Who could resist that jovial pea green face, let alone the deeply heartfelt, trip-hop inflected tunes showcased within?

P.H.F. has threatened NATURALISED IN VIOLENCE might be the Tāmaki Makaurau-based iconoclast's final release under that name — if that is the case, this is how it's done. Four earhole-excoriating noisescape / doom metal blasts, emotionally pummelling yet somehow super catchy from the internationally lauded 2024 Silver Scroll finalist.

Launched just before Christmas, Phoebe Rings OST reimagines tunes from the LIVE MUSIC BAR guest stars' newly reissued debut EP (via Carpark Records) as SNES-style electronic instrumentals to bop along to — a magical, fully successful translation. These versions first appeared as unlockable tunes on Phoebe Rings' very own video game Starfall, that you can play online right HERE. "Seasons greetings! The music from our video game (and EP) is now available as SNES style tunes for your listening pleasure".

Brought to you by Glitz Club and launched just before Christmas, Merry Glitzmas operates as a roll call / multi-dimensional snapshot of Aotearoa's open-eared club production community of late '24. Names already beloved by local partygoers sit snugly next to deep underground lurkers across a monumental fifty nine tracks — an inclusive banquet of tunes expressing playfully-minded, body-moving hi-energy throughout. "We are dedicating this one to the brother in glitz, Sam, Aka Bron, who passed away on November 23rd 2024 in Leeds, England. He is always with us and lives on through spirit and the beautiful music he produced. Half of all proceeds will go towards helping bring Sam home to his whānau. The other half will be donated to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, in an attempt to bring hope and support to children in need. Let the glow of Aotearoa's underground guide you this Glitzmas".

Directed / filmed / edited by Sina Leo, the stylish monochrome urban abstraction of 'Relax' is the second video to emerge from WAIWHAI.'s standout 2024 debut album SLOWDOWN WORLD (Noa Records). Sporting fluid dance movements by the Tāmaki Makaurau multi-instrumentalist / producer in the top right corner, 'Relax' jams a cityscape of free-spirited funk into just over two and a half minutes. "This sequence explores the normalisation of urban hyper-activity, motioned in the streets of Tāmaki Makaurau. A visual voice of contrast emerges as we glimpse expressions of nature's pace; it is essentially a call to reassess ways of being in the world".

Moving from delicate solo piano and romantic vocal croon to orchestral sweeping grandeur, 'Mortal Wound' is the third gothic ballad unfurled from The Veils' forthcoming seventh studio record Asphodels, launching in full on 25 January via V2 Records / Banished From The Universe (vinyl LP, compact disc and merch preorders available HERE). Helmed as always by UK-based Aotearoa luminary Finn Andrews, The Veils return to our shores in two months time for their six date Asphodels - Live In Concert tour of Aotearoa, including a performance with NZTrio at WOMAD Aotearoa 2025 and an appearance at Wānaka's Festival Of Colour. "This is a song about the quietly held hope that love is fundamentally a healing force. It’s by far the most bombastic song on the record, which is strange because, in many ways, it has the gentlest sentiment of them all. I like that the title sounds like a '90s goth band — it’s a very misleading title which I enjoyed anyway".

Ōtautahi-based songwriter Mim Jensen unfurled her sophomore EP Shadow of the Gift in mid-December, engineered and produced by Will McGillivray (Goodwill) — preceded by a vibrant clip for lead single 'Same Blood' directed by Adam Hogan and Soane Pamatangi.

On the rise Te Whanganui-a-Tara grunge-gazers Cruelly ripped the band-aid off their six song debut Ugly Behaviour EP, including squalling lead singles 'No Doubt' and 'Cross My Heart'.

The Electrons are the keys-zapping Te Whanganui-a-Tara combo of Tyson Smith, Dayle Jellyman, Tom Callwood and Cory Champion, making fresh shapes in future-gazing, dancefloor-igniting garage / psych / surf on their new self-titled album — reminding this listener a little bit of the capital's long-lost The Chandeliers.

Aotearoa saxophone supremo Jeff Henderson claims the newly coined genre of Dungeon Sax as his own on a two track release unleashed last month, featuring drum programming by Riki Gooch — laid down live at at Dungeon (monthly gig night) in the former Whammy Backroom in mid-2024. Henderson also welcomes as to the fiery new year with Short Solos 2024, "a selection of solo pieces performed throughout 2024" recorded at the much-missed The Wine Cellar and at the Union Chapel in Lyttelton.

Now the duo of Alastair Galbraith and Bruce Russell following the passing of Peter Stapleton in 2020, Lyttelton sonic alchemists A Handful of Dust shared new four "tune" release / aural deep dive The Drum is the Shaman's Horse in mid-December. "Unadorned, brutal and sonically austere, this new set captures the 'wild Mercury sound' for which this long-standing unit is rightly feted among cognoscenti of the Antipodean New Thing".

A Te Ika-a-Māui manifestation of a similarly free noisy spirit, P Wits and L Xerox rend holes in reality via what they claim to be "guitar / electronics" on heavily textured new two tracker Nude, Unpleasant or Both.

Songwriter, broadcaster, game designer and now... movie star! That's Finn Johansson, subject of director Theo Taylor's new music documentary What A Way To Make A Living — following "the much-loved NZ indie musician, Finn Johansson, as he embarks on a 20-date self-funded tour of Europe. The film...captures the highs and lows of D.I.Y. touring from the inside, and investigates the financial burden of doing what you love".