Louis Baker has spent the years since his 2021 debut Love Levitates quietly building a reputation as one of Aotearoa’s most distinctive soul voices, and the wait for a follow-up is now officially over. The Louis Baker Trouble album, his second full-length and first self-produced record, is confirmed for release on 9 October 2026 via his own label, NgΔkau Records, and it comes with the news that he’s finally heading back out on the road properly for the first time since that debut.
The album’s title track, released earlier this month, has already given fans a taste of where Baker’s headspace has been. According to the announcement, the record sits somewhere between grief and community, a reckoning with loss balanced against the pull of the people around him, which tracks with an artist who’s always leaned into emotional honesty over flash.
The tour itself is a genuinely nationwide sweep, taking in smaller centres alongside the main centres across late October and into early November, a route that suggests Baker’s audience has grown well beyond the crowd that tends to dominate NZ touring circuits. Reported dates run from Dunedin and Queenstown through to WΔnaka, Napier, Mount Maunganui, Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington and a Taranaki festival slot, giving fans right across the country a genuine chance to catch the new material live rather than just the usual main-centre loop.
Baker’s own comments around the announcement point to genuine excitement at getting back on stage after such a long gap, not something to take for granted for an independent artist juggling a self-produced record with the logistics of a full national run. For an artist who’s built his following on warmth and vulnerability rather than viral moments, the Louis Baker Trouble album and the tour behind it feel less like a comeback and more like the natural next chapter for one of the country’s steadiest musical talents.
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