In her second album, Pocket Clocks, Hannah Virk stretches her sonic palette and lyrical ambition, as she swaps the domestic interiors of her debut, Upstairs / Downstairs, for a world governed by ticking clocks and algorithmic rhythms. It is a lo-fi, thoughtful, and distinctive meditation on time, technology, and identity, full of charm and intelligence.
On Bit Players, Don and the Divorcees invite us into quiet rooms where we might sit alone, delivering a debut album that leans into subtlety, silences, and songcraft.
No Cigar have carved out a place as one of Aotearoa’s most distinctive alt-rock exports, threading together indie rock, coastal grooves, and emotional candour since their formation in 2019.
On his latest album Anything Is Possible, Chris Stamey, a founding member of The dBs, finely crafts a record of musical memory, stitched together from echoes of past masters, fleeting lyrical references, and the enduring emotional architecture of classic pop.
On I Love People, his fifth solo album, Cory Hanson offers a warm, sun-drenched, and slightly subversive take on the 1970s American songbook.
The name Folk Bitch Trio is punky, provocative, even a little tongue-in-cheek, but the music on their debut album Now Would Be A Good Time is quietly radical in a different way.
Formed in 2020 in Tāmaki Makaurau, Soft Bait are a band that took shape before they ever took the stage. Their debut, Plot Points, written and recorded before playing a single gig, was literary, brooding post-punk built on relentless rhythm and tight, coiled tension.
On their quietly assured debut album Eyes Over There, Sadsmiles, the collaborative project of Mahoney Harris and Wayne Bell, offer a collection of songs that reward stillness and attentiveness. With Harris on lead vocals and Bell playing every instrument, the album is a notebook of understatement: poetic, emotionally intelligent, and beautifully unhurried.
On their 2022 debut, Wet Leg made a splash with slacker wit, post-punk cool, and a deadpan sense of fun. With moisturizer, Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers return, but this time, the songs are about love, and Wet Leg now sound like a tight, fully formed band.
Nelson trio Shedheads introduce themselves with Big Milk, a debut album that barrels out of the gate with intent, throwing funk, rock, and noise into a blender. Across ten tracks they make noise, play fast, and say a lot. Whether every moment lands is debatable, but there is no doubting their skills, ambition, or energy.
