Naked PR

13/05/2026

Catch Fables at #9 on the Radio One 91FM Top 11 👏

12/05/2026

"If you’ve ever needed a reason to slow down and just breathe, Fables has provided the perfect soundtrack."

Read Muzic.NZ's review of Fables' new album Change Is A Slow Moving Beast 👏

If you’ve ever needed a reason to slow down and just breathe, Fables has provided the perfect soundtrack.

12/05/2026

We want to wish safe travels to LEAO and the band, as they travel to the UK. LEAO is confirmed to perform at The Great Escape Festival, in Brighton, UK. This is one of the biggest music showcases of new music in Europe and will be the first international performances for LEAO. Huge congrats to LEAO and the Noa Records team! Noa Records received the Creative New Zealand Award at the 2024 Pacific Music Awards and it is wonderful to see them have this incredible opportunity to take their music to the world.

And if organising the festival and follow up shows wasn’t enough – LEAO released a new single and their very first music video, ‘Lalelei’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BdVZttPyPA). Acknowledging the support behind the trip from Outward Sound and also the video support from NZ On Air – and the incredible family and community that are behind LEAO. We hope to share more about their time in the UK over the coming weeks.

11/05/2026

Formed from a Pacific heart, LEAO is a Samoan musical project formed up of guitarist/vocalist David Feauai-Afaese, bassist Navakatoa Tekela-Pule steel guitarist

11/05/2026

Noa Records collective have announced their new album THE SAMOA TAPES.

10/05/2026

We're thrilled to let you know that today LEAO releases LALELEI, the final single from their forthcoming full-length album: THE SAMOA TAPES (via Noa Records). Following this release LEAO will embark on a trip to the United Kingdom to perform at The Great Escape Festival festival in Brighton before touring with Tinariwen throughout Scandinavia.

LALELEI is quintessential LEAO; combining yearnful lyricism alongside the brilliant instrumentation. At its heart, this single is a love letter and a dedication to ‘aiga ma atunu’u’ (family and homeland). The song stories a love held strong for a home long missed, capturing themes of distance, yearning and insurmountable commitment to the fa’asamoa. With this single’s sonic palette bringing together classic Samoan garage with new-age production, LEAO continue their dedication to synthesising Pacific nostalgia with the modern age.

“The intent behind LALELEI initially was to write something closer to older classic Samoan pop songs” David contemplates. “A lot of old Samoan classics from the late-70’s and throughout the 80’s took inspiration from American popular music of the time such as soft rock, funk, soul and R&B, thus compositionally we had a strong idea of what to reference sonically. Lyrically, there’s nothing more iconic in Samoan songwriting than writing a song dedicated to Samoa. LALELEI is a tribute to Samoa and to all the Samoan bands that contributed to what we know Samoan pop music today.”

LEAO’s love for the Pacific musical reference is unending with LALELEI being yet another manifestation of their Pacific pride and hope. “I’m proud to be Samoan and the fa’asamoa (the Samoan Way) deeply lenses how I see and interact with the world. However, it’s been so long since I’ve been back to Samoa and it’s not lost on me that my conceptualisation of Samoa as someone in the diaspora, is unique to how Samoans in Samoa imagine Samoa and themselves. That said, I think it’s what makes a project like LEAO so meaningful, in both it’s intention and makeup, because the conversation about Samoaness and the fa’asamoa is invigorated and opened, rather than existing as a monolith. My own fa’asamoa involves honouring Te Tiriti; it involves uplifting other cultures & peoples that aren’t Samoan. For at the heart of the fa’asamoa is the value of alofa (love) and tautua (service); and my duty is to uphold that.”

As LALELEI is released, LEAO heads to the UK and Europe, performing at the Great Escape Festival and supporting Tinariwen. Reflecting on the moment, David says, “Having LALELEI be finished and ready to be shared feels fulfilling, special and exciting. It feels like the next stepping stone in our journey as a group, during a time where we feel very inspired and comfortable in our practice. Each LEAO song we’ve released thus far always feels like yet another contribution to the tapestry that is Samoan music and we feel very honoured to be able to contribute as such.”

20/04/2026

After a decade Gareth Thomas has returned to release LET IT!, the jubilant first single from his long awaited third solo album Bits (due for release in 2026). LET IT! is accompanied by a dot matrix, brick game inspired music video (made with assistance from NZ On Air Music ) that reminds the viewer there is more to life than the 9 to 5.

The track sees Gareth return to his roots, experimenting with synths and drum machines in his spare time after work. Inspired by the melodic bass lines and LinnDrum sounds of Lou Reed's 80s output, Thomas fired up a cheap Volca Sample drum machine and Moog synthesizer to create the track.

“LET IT! is a bedroom recording and it marks a return to how I wrote and recorded with Goodshirt,” shares Gareth. “The first album I ever bought with my own money was Lou Reed's New Sensations and I wanted to explore a similar palette he was using. I was also enjoying the electronic sounds of Gorillaz, Sisters Underground and SILICON.”

LET IT! is an anthem about chucking it all in and walking away from your 9 to 5. “I wanted to write an anthem about quitting your day job” admits Gareth. “‘Your boss is a twit when he's not being an idiot and he's like that 5 days a week,’ was the first line I came up with after feeling pretty fed up at work. It was that line that kicked it all off.”

“LET IT! suggests ‘why don't you let it all come undone, and see what you may find,’ and that’s basically what I've done over the last four years. I moved to the West Coast and reduced my hours, it's been a really good move!”

The song is accompanied by an animated music video made by Thomas, Sith Douang Kham Chanh and Thievery Studio (with assistance from NZ On Air Music) and harks back to the 2D brick game consoles (that were commonplace in the 90s) before exploding into a euphoric 3D landscape. “I wanted to make an animated video honouring the LCD pocket arcade games of my childhood. So I started by making a heap of animated LCD styled gifs in Photoshop - then my friend Sith Douang stitched them all together with his After Effects magic. The result is an imaginary LCD pocket arcade game where a Mario type character breaks free from his workplace.”

Reflecting on LET IT! Gareth jokes “I absolutely love the track, though I'm a little concerned that I might offend the wrong boss! (Let's just say the lyrics were written a long time before the song was recorded. It's heaps of fun to play live - there are lots of sing along bits for the audience to get involved.”

Catch Gareth performing LET IT! and songs from his legendary back catalogue at Whammy Bar's Public Bar, on April 30!

19/04/2026

17/04/2026

Change Is a Slow Moving Beast welcomes us into the rich inner world of Tāmaki Makaurau singer-songwriter Jessica Bailey, aka Fables. Image by image, the music documents the moments that forced her to reevaluate her life, and the hard-won personal growth that followed. Over twelve moody, vividly realised chambers of song, she navigates indecision, vulnerability, and self-reflection, before realising that the pursuit of artistic clarity is the journey and the destination.

There’s a popular misconception out there that the human body completely replaces its cells every seven years. While it isn’t strictly true, the idea serves as an apt metaphor for the distance between Bailey’s first EP, 2018’s Portraits and Change Is a Slow-Moving Beast. From the eerie opening atmosphere of her paean to absolution, ‘Forgiving’, Bailey’s debut album emerges as a patiently paced exploration of how life inevitably transforms us.

Previously released singles ‘Sundown’, ‘Enough’ and ‘Eyes Closed’ have all placed on the national Hot 20 Aotearoa Singles chart, featured in Spotify's Tapestry (199,000k followers) & Fresh Finds Folk (96,000 followers) playlists and praised by Undertheradar.co.nz, Rolling Stone AU/NZ, RNZ, Coup De Main, NZ Listener, and The 13th Floor. The songs have commanded Aotearoa’s alternative airwaves charting on 95bFM, Radio One and the wider Student Radio Network. Now available exclusively on Vinyl LP via Te Whanganui a Tara label Home Alone (ahead of a digital release on April 24th), Change Is a Slow-Moving Beast brings Bailey’s deeply personal reflections into a cohesive whole.

Somewhere between diary entries, mood montages, and echoes of memory, songs like ‘Cacophony’, ‘Notebook’ and past singles ‘Sundown’ and ‘Eyes Closed’ delve into her relationships with grieving, yearning, and pining. These universal themes anchor the emotional landscape of the record. It’s been a long, slow rise, but for anyone who has ever made the mistake of not trusting their gut instincts, Bailey’s album offers catharsis, acceptance and release. By the time the album concludes as ‘Every time I find the Meaning of Life’ rings out, she’s come to terms with the relationship between the goal posts and mirages. The good, the bad, the ugly, none of it lasts forever, so best we live through all of it the best we can.

“I wasn’t sure if I was documenting a collapse or a becoming, I think it’s both.” shares Bailey. “There’s something very valuable and true in that, existing in the in-between.”

“I think of change as a creature, shaped by time, memory, and environment. It’s not clean or linear, it’s something you live alongside. Long before the album took shape, I created an installation in 2016 with the same name. At the time, I was exploring ideas of transformation, decay, and preservation through painting and sculpture. I didn’t realise it then, but those same ideas stayed with me and eventually found their way into the music.”

"To me, change isn’t something that happens overnight. It’s slow, and its work is never done."

Recorded with a resplendent cast of session musicians - bassist Cass Basil (Tiny Ruins, King Sweeties), multi-instrumentalist Dave Kahn (Marlon Williams, Reb Fountain), and drummer Arahi (Te Tokotoru, Pony Baby) - Change Is a Slow-Moving Beast dresses Bailey’s confessional songwriting in the textures of alt-country, Americana, contemporary folk and sleek, minimal synth-pop. Mixed by Australian audio engineer and musician Dan Luscombe (of The Drones) and produced by Khan, the album is rendered in a vivid, cinematic style that complements the music’s unguarded emotional intensity.

Bailey reflects; "I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who helped pull these songs out of me and hold them in place. Finishing the album feels less like an ending and more like the start of whatever comes next.”

Change Is a Slow-Moving Beast is available now on Limited Edition Vinyl LP from all good record stores ahead of it's digital release on April 24. Catch Fables on the road performing with Mali Mali at Waiheke (Artowrks Theatre, April 18), Kirikiriroa (House Concert, April 19), Ōtepoti ( Diver, April 23), Tāhuna (Sherwood, April 24) and Ohinehou (Wunderbar, April 26). Tickets are available now from iticket & undertheradar.co.nz

09/03/2026