These Fresh Faves were picked by our readers over the weekend – and reviewed by Fresh On The Net’s Chris Ingram this week. You can hear all these tracks in a single Soundcloud playlist here.

Hello!

It has been a VERY long time since I have done these. I was overwhelmed by how good the tracks were as were the ones who just missed out. 5 tracks made it through on equal votes. It was tight. Keep submitting, keep working, keep doing your art folks. In these times you ALL help keep the night fire burning against the darkness. Trust me on that.

Much love. Chris.

BERRY & BALLOON TWISTER – Bear Can Dance

Taken from Berry & Balloon Twister’s album Cry Havoc, the track emanates pure joyful energy, and I can understand why it gained the votes to make our top ten, Their energy is encapsulated nicely by their album cover — a sausage dog running toward its owner with its tongue lagging! Come here and give me a huge squish. Which is exactly what this track does. “Oh yeah, oh yeah, the bear can dance” is the hook set to what I want to call a mellow, high vibe dance track. Funky, chunky and just lush. What a quirky pleasure!

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CARAPACE – Blorenj

Now whilst still in the realms of dance music, particularly drum and bass, Carapace strikes a completely different tone. Slightly darker, deeper, aggressive, sinister but still absolutely laced with the right magic to get you on the floor cutting shapes. My immediate comparison was the standout track from the Jason Bourne films, Extreme Ways by Moby, there are echoes of that track bouncing around in the background. Then it takes on an ulterior edge round about 1 min 40. Perhaps from here on in a more apt comparison would be your man Tricky. Best listened too in a dark club lit by violet strobes and surrounded by wildly dancing strangers to be fully gotten at. 

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CHOLLY – 3 Day Weekend

An artist known to us here at HQ, Cholly has an exceptional talent for composition, lyric writing and a voice that puts the marshmallows on my hot chocolate of a winter’s eve. “The coffee’s gone cold in the French press…”, “I don’t like wondering what’s on your mind, but I kind of have to or am not kind”. The cold coffee as an analogy for love going cold, for avoiding the stresses of other people’s minds in a relationship. Sometimes you just have to drink the coffee and this angular, at times knee-breaking, cut glass tune sums it up perfectly for me. Her new EP is out now!

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ERRUNHRD – Ruminate (Meditate)

Our playlist is clearly reflecting a change in tempo and vibrations from our mods to our listeners as am hearing a lot early dance influences, synth driven and ethereal music such as this around at the moment. No bad thing at all as I seen a lot of very good artists doing this very well at Smithdown Road Festival and Focus Wales recently, such as Paperhouse and Ghostlawns. What clearly stands out with Errunhrd for me at least is the vocalist’s instant ability to carry me off with her voice as we “see the clouds in the sky” and we drift off together letting go of inhibitions and leaping with wild abandon, around a field with thousands of other pleasure seekers.

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FEEO – End Song

This is luscious. Feeo has the voice to back up the talent! Songwriting where I am not sure which words to cherry pick as examples. “After that first moment of our origins, spent a few thousand years killing and stealing from poor religions. Til after centuries and centuries of poor decisions. We settled down with our new god we call consumerism”. YES! Fist pumps in the air, amen sister of the universe. Feeo just booted religion, slavery, capitalism, the Bible, patriarchy and our modern slavish ways into the long grass within 0.52 seconds of sheer beauty. Think Massive Attack, Zero 7, think intellectual and cutting, sexy and smart and you are still nowhere near touching the force of nature here. Get in.

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MARSUPIAL SOUP – Fishing Lines

To leap from the last track to Fishing Lines by Marsupial Soup was a great juxtaposition. The clacker sticks, the bassline and the call back surf rock intro get me bopping! This track is a top bopper! On a space hopper 😄. “A taste for the dust of the desert and a lust for the rays of the sun” is how their biography describes them on Soundcloud. A lovely dream pop number with loads of energy. I want to hear more, I want to see more, I want to feel more and so should you! Get on it.

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SISTER LUCY – Big Kid

“Big girl pants, drying in the breeze, almost thirty and still a treat, when I grow up, I wanna go wherever you are”. This is the intro to a real raw gripping song by Sister Lucy about lament. Admitting to being 30 and not feeling grown up is something that I feel so much. I want to run around the park, go on all the rides, hook the fish and laugh whilst holding hands in the queue for the rollercoaster to this.  That’s emotive power. That’s the sign of a good tune. 

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TAPESTRI – Save Your Love

I was lucky enough to see Tapestri at Focus Wales recently and Sera is a stable mate @cegrecords. So I already had some inside gen on these guys. I don’t vote or chose a fave anymore on the weeks I’m reviewing just because I don’t want to influence things. The joy of listening and writing it up is enough. As Omar said in The Wire, “a man’s got to have a code”.

Lowri Evans met Sera at a French festival and from there this magical project took off. I’ve heard them on BBC Wales and BBC Radio 2 and I’ve seen them live in a Cathedral and they were brilliant every time. Not many bands are as good live as on air. Folk music is unique in that sense. 

“I won’t hold you back dear, but I won’t let you go, drowning in the shallows, twisted is my soul”. If you have ever seen Oh Brother Where Art Thou, the sirens scene is pretty much as close a comparison as I could give. Just fantastic.

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THE VIC C PROJECT – Scavengers

“I’m gonna dance baby am gonna dance”. I really hope that this is sung by a woman with scarlet lipstick, twisting her hair, looking over her shoulder at me. Totally not giving a fuck if I want to dance or not. She is going dancing. I can come or not. Ultimately, if you don’t feel compelled to dance your soul needs a word with itself la. 

This top ten has been lovely because as a moderator I’ve been pushed to listen to some new exciting, hot shit. I will be recommending The Vic C Project to EVERYONE. It’s so fit it’s hilarious. If you don’t agree then you got no marrow in them bones.

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USTOO. – Skin

“I’ve got a feeling that I should set this record straight. Your little devil in me, can’t let it be and walk away, you’re running walking circles round me, that spin me out into the grave”. The angst, hurt, pain, the love, the rage, the sex, the rage sex is all in the fibre of the fabric of this tune. Lazy and dirty, seedy and cursed with magic from dancing too close to the flames. I felt the words and the themes here so much as am sure lots of people will. The catharsis lies in creating art from pain and becoming strong and empowered. Ustoo sing us out with a glorious line “Paper airplane, kiss the sky, kiss the sky”. A wonderful ending to this weeks top 10. Nice work. 

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PS from TR: If you’ve submitted a track that hasn’t been picked for the Listening Post, our team has definitely listened to it and there’s no need to send it again: feel free to send us an even stronger track another week. The same goes if you were picked for the Listening Post but didn’t feature in our Fresh Faves.

But if we’ve recently featured you in our Fresh Faves – or on my BBC Introducing Mixtape – please wait three months before sending us another track, so we have space to help other deserving artists… For more info see Robinson Has A Good Old Moan.