This Week’s Fresh Faves as chosen by you, our readers, from a field of 27 strong contenders. You can see who picked what on last week’s Listening Post. These tracks aren’t “better” than the other 16 – they’re just the Eleven that you (and we) happened to like the most. They’re listed isted below in alphabetical order:
CANUTE – Ephemeral
A dischord of strings start and end this epic indie guitar shaped song. A vocal with enough of a difference – and a song with enough of an attitude. Produced and mixed by Louis Skinner, you can find this “three-piece from the Thames Wasteland” on Facebook here.
CHRIS SELMAN – Modern Romance
As previously featured by Tom on BBC Radio 6 Music: check out the black-and-white video here. Piano-led banging indie pop music with a fresh telephone effect vocal. This is what Ben Folds Five might sound like if they came from smalltown Britain.
IAN THISTLETHWAITE – Hamburg
Lovely jangly indie pop from Ian Thistlethwaite. Kicking off with the lyrics ‘I met her on chicken farm, she was looking for some Geese’, not sure if its a real-life love story – or how Ian actually ended up in Hamburg “Where they make meat”. But we are very pleased he let us in on his journey: great song.
KITES – This Jumped-Up Boy In Livery
21st Century New Romantic synth’n’guitar mas up pulled from the 1980s (possibly without that many actual guitars). A real grower with a vocal that has a lovely yearning to it, digging the “oh oh” vocals. This is succeeding, Kites!!! Could easily be pulled out of a 1980’s movie about disillusioned youth. We likes it.
NEW CABRONES – Wolf Blitzer
Acoustic guitar led song that name drops Charlie Sheen and Ricky Gervais and is inspired by the American CNN reporter Wolf Blitzer. TBH I know this purely because of Google and rather than being some obscure East German movement of the 1920’s as I had imagined Wolf hosts a newscast called ‘The Situation Room’. Being a lovechild brought up on the BBC I have hardly watched CNN, I saw it once in a hotel room somewhere but found the mini bar held my attention much better. Great song though from New Cabrones.
PREMISE BEACH – Hold Me Now
Great drum and guitar interplay had us hooked from the off, gentle vocals fit in snugly as a bug (neither tightly wrapped nor loosely tied). Really enjoyed this and imagined myself being picked up by the song in the morning with its tasty groove that put me in mind of Tears for Fears. Can’t wait until the morning.
REBEKAH DELGADO – Little Boy Blue
Dark & broody in its flavour that we found rather fetching. Like a female Nick Cave with a distant drum & guitar refrain echoing to the gravel tipped voice of Rebekah. Splendid.
ROB MARR – Fat And Happy
My Personal pick of this week’s tracks. Rob Marr has a really special unhurried approach to his songs. Great piano-led groove with a drumbeat that Steve Gadd would have been proud of: this is a corker of a tune. This can undertake numerous listens and still sound fresh. After being wheat-free, sugar-free & fun-free myself (ok, it was only for three and a half days) I want to join Rob and get fat and happy. 87.6% of people will find this song special.
SO WHAT ROBOT – Work And Play
Another discovery from the North East’s thriving music scene – this time, a four-piece band from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Punky, funky and 80’s induced synth and guitar love fest. A strange lovechild of Devo & the Red Hot Chilli Peppers – we reckon these guys will be something to behold on the live circuit.
SOLKO – December
The saxophone surprised me (in a good way, you understand) after the mash up of funk/southern rock style-ee intro. These guys mean business and they are going for it. Tight as the tendons of a butchers dog, this is a stormer of a track. Great bass, drums, vocals and a sax that was very well placed – another act who sound like they would be great live. Great job!
THE B OF THE BANG – Sharks Of The Atomic Atoll
Smart and well-formed indie music with a grungy undercurrent. Really great dynamic range and we particularly enjoyed the folk like choir of voices which gave the song a lovely twist. Echoes of The Smiths and Radiohead can be a very useful thing when used in this subtle way. Promising indeed.
Hey Johnno, the drumbeat from Rob Marr’s tune is played by Andy Newmark (Sly and the Family Stone amongst many others) Probably someone Steve Gad was inspired by in fact!
Hi Johnno
Embedding now enabled on Rebekah’s track – not sure what happened there, it was set fine last week and has been embedded on a few blogs! Sorry about that – hope you can edit to include it. Thanks for the kind words too.
Chris
Thanks Chris – sorted!
T x
Thanks for featuring Hold Me Now, I’m sure Premise Beach (or Jon as I call him) will be genuinely made up at the Tears for Fears reference.
All the best with the new show, Tom.
Jonny
Congrats to the songs that made the ‘Fresh Faves’ and thanks to those listeners who selected mine.
Great to be on the list, especially amongst such great music, and a fine wealth of talent in the contenders. I can confirm that I’ve never been to Hamburg, and know nothing about it’s meat industry. Whilst the song is fictional, it is also absolutely true, and, in some ways, ridiculous, such is the subject matter: love.
Really interesting mix here, and thanks for voting/having me on the list. I didn’t want to vote initially (might be a bit biased!) but… my favourite here is B of the Bang, folky vocals do really set it apart. Great stuff. Also liked:
Rob Marr – jolly and great lyrics/delivery
So What Robot – really reminds me of Soft Toy Emergency (with a male singer)
Rebekah Delgado – vocally reminiscent of Cerys Matthews who I think is massively underrated…
Great as always, Tom!
A big thank you for the write up Johnno. I’m off to dive into the other songs, a pleasure to be in such interesting company.
PS I ate every single one of those cakes in the picture, with additional squirty cream. I felt quite full afterwards.
Here’s Premise Beach’s Hold Me Now video hot off the press- http://youtu.be/Vm_nCCuyIlc
I want cake and hollow legs please;)
And good luck to everyone in future endeavours