Fresh Faves: Batch 98

Glass Ankle - photo by Ric Harris

Artists at a glance

EDWARD PATRIS
GLASS ANKLE
KOLOTO
LARA SMILES
MOURNING BIRDS
MR B GENTLEMAN RHYMER
MYNAMEISIAN
SUNSTACK JONES
SWORDS
THE NEBYUDELIC SOUND SYSTEM

This week’s Fresh Faves are reviewed by Steff Lane – stonemason, musician, fond father and longstanding member of Team Freshnet’s moderation squad.

Sly And Reggie from The Suburban Pirate asked last week if we could feature a Fresh Faves playlist this week to make it easier to listen to all the tracks in one go. So this week you can click here to open a Soundcloud playlist in a new window featuring all the tracks below. Please post a comment to let us know if you find this useful – we can do it every week from now on, if so…

EDWARD PATRIS – A Love To Believe In

This song A Love To Believe In by Edward Patris hit me for six! The second comment on his Soundcloud page which mentions Lullaby says mostly all. Love the use of all instruments and effects. That unexpected chord change set the butterflies within me. A beautiful, well crafted song that definitely deserves listening ears. Truly captivating!

Soundcloud | FacebookBandcamp

GLASS ANKLE – One Of Them

Entering Psychedelia, the late sixties juxtaposed with modern music. Just love the feel of Glass Ankle‘s sound – innocent, but yet thought provoking – all done in an excellent style. Featured on their new EP ‘FRAGMENTS’to be released next month on their own label ‘Sleeper Train Sound’

Official | Soundcloud | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Bandcamp

KOLOTO – Fox Tales

A beautiful array of percussion reminiscent of the Glitch sound of the late 90’s. Great production and arrangements by Maria Sullivan from Canterbury working under her project name of Koloto. Her latest 5 track EP Mechanica is available as a free download on her Facebook page. Well worth downloading and relaxing to.

WordPress | Soundcloud | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Bandcamp

LARA SMILES – A Million Times

It is hard to imagine that London-based, singer-songwriter Lara Smiles started out writing punk and soul songs. This pop/indie song A Million Times was her second release in August 2013 and I’m looking forward to her next single due this coming May. A million yeses for sure!

Official | Soundcloud | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Bandcamp

MOURNING BIRDS – Eve Of The Isle

The Mourning Birds were featured on Fresh Faves 81 which I reviewed back in October last year. The voting public have welcomed them back yet again for this weeks Fresh Faves with their song Eve Of The Isle which is another superb Garage Rock tune – all done and dusted in under two and a half minutes. Short but sweet and with maximum impact!

Soundcloud | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

MR B THE GENTLEMAN RHYMER – HipHop Was To Blame After All

Music can be dead serious, or in some cases flippant (it all depends on the way that’s it deciphered). Here is a song which carries a great lyric combined with a well thought out tune.
You cannot help but love Hip-Hop Was To Blame After All because of its simplicity and cheekiness but – hey – are all songs meant to be so ambiguous as to lose their true meaning? Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer breaks that barrier and forwards musical innovation at its best.

Official | Soundcloud | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

MYNAMEISIAN – Yeah You

A great drumbeat combined with scaling bass – then those believable vocals – more than enough to get anybody’s pulse rate racing way above what the doctor ordered. My only concern was the use of the f*** word halfway through the song. Mynameisian could easily have replaced with ‘mess’ (same number of syllables) without losing any of the song’s impact. That would have made Yeah You so much more radio-friendly. Still a top tune though!

WordPress | Soundcloud | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Bandcamp

SUNSTACK JONES – Bet I Could

Start young, keep the faith and cherish the rewards. That’s Paul Denheyer from Liverpool. Having had a successful career, including a John Peel session for Radio 1 in the 80s, he is now associated with Sunstack Jones as a producer/artist. He can be found on Soundcloud under Klutz. Whatever he is doing, or whoever he is with, ’tis a fine tune indeed.

Official | Soundcloud | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Blogspot

SWORDS – Hips

Displacement – when your sensations are spread all over the place, but are still held together. That is what this song does to me. Diane Anglin’s vocals are so surreal. Swords are three piece band from Dublin, mixing minimal with maximum effect. A well-produced, dreamy song that begs to be listened to – and I kept on listening!

Official | Soundcloud | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

THE NEBYUDELIC SOUND SYSTEM – Down To The River

I must admit that I have a soft spot for a song that grows around a one-chord/note-dominant structure. I could compare this track by The Nebyudelic Sound System to N.I.N, The Mission and Placebo – but that would not be doing them justice by pure comparison. Down To The River is one of my favorite tunes of the week – it just melts into the fire of imagination – enough said.

Soundcloud | Facebook | MySpace | YouTube | Reverbnation

PS from TR: If you’ve submitted a track that hasn’t made the Listening Post you’re welcome to re-submit it another week. If your music has appeared on the Listening Post but not in our Fresh Faves, feel free to send us an even stronger track another week. However, if we’ve recently featured you in our Fresh Faves – or on my BBC Introducing Mixtape – please hold back 2-3 months before sending us another track, so we can give other new artists a chance… For more info see Robinson Has A Good Old Moan.

Steff

When not creating structures out of individual stone, I spend my time constructing songs out of individual notes. As an added bonus, I was invited by Tom Robinson to be a small cog in the giant wheel that's Fresh On The Net. Welsh is my 1st language and I'm often asked if I think in Welsh and then translate to English - well I have no answer to that - it's just a natural process which is hard to define - like writing a song I suppose! Follow me on Twitter @SteffLane

13 Comments

  1. So happy to have made this week’s fresh faves, thank you so much freshonthenet! Honoured to be among such a brilliant and diverse selection of tracks. Strange how the track hasn’t embedded properly, but clicking on the track seems to divert to Soundcloud with no problems. 🙂

  2. Jim

    Great reviews Steff.

  3. Tom

    @GregGlassAnkle Cheers for the heads-up Greg – don’t know if you changed the settings or it was just another Soundcloud gremlin, but it’s embedded fine now 🙂

  4. Great job everyone & fine reviews Steff Lane

  5. Sam @ Mourning Birds

    Top Stuff, Thanks for having us back … and the tracks uploaded are wicked, Sunstack Jones my personal favourite 🙂

  6. @Tom: Brilliant, thanks Tom! Yes, it was the “For Everybody” option I had not noticed before within the “Widget Enabled” setting that was not checked. All sorted now. Many thanks again ?(???)?.

  7. Thanks so much to all those who voted for us – stiff competition and typical high standards from the Fresh On The Net team! Lara Smiles is wicked! 🙂

  8. @tonyabbit

    Excellent bag, thanks for sharing, and top reviews Steff. Diolch.

  9. Edward Patris

    Thanks a billion trillion million Steff !!..what a great review !
    ‘Gonna go back to the studio now… 🙂
    Thanks again,

    Edward

  10. oldierob

    am liking the soundcloud playlist, thanks team fotn

  11. Loobydoobs

    Such a good batch with excellent reviews Steff. Cheers for sharing. Also like the Soundcloud Playlist click……. 🙂

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