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

So it is officially Springtime in the UK and, however climate change may have messed with our expectations, the good old British tradition of April Showers has been very much in evidence all week. So it is good to see that this has not dampened the spirits of our vibrant grassroots music community. This weekend saw another stellar Listening Post drawn from a strong in-box; a reminder of how much talent is out there. It is, as ever, a privilege to review the ten tracks our discerning readers have chosen. Coffee’s brewed. Headphones are on. Here goes!

ALL THE BEES – Stone From The Ocean 

When I saw the name All The Bees, I briefly wondered whether this might be a band where all the members’ names began with B. I was wrong! In fact All The Bees are a duo of Katy McGee and Gitika Partington who describe their sound as ‘Folk Noir’. These two are seasoned professionals with a track record involving plenty of media attention. A look through their social media pages reveals radio interviews and reviews galore including rave ones of their last album which Folk Radio listed in its top ten of 2023 among a host of accomplished names.

One that got my full attention on first listen when it came into the inbox, Stone From The Ocean has a strangely reassuring familiarity about its repeating major key melody; almost like a campfire song although a pretty classy one if so. The orchestral character of the evolving instrumental backdrop adds a rich quality to their uplifting vocals and close harmonies, bringing a sense of timelessness to this highly satisfying track.

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DARKSTATES – Embers

North London singer, writer and producer Darkstates is clearly on the radar of BBC Introducing’s Jericho Keys who has been playing him on his own show and when he stood in for Tom Robinson on the BBC 6 Music Introducing Mixtape Show. He has also been one of Charlie Ashcroft’s ‘finds’ on Amazing Radio and has built up an impressive 1.5K monthly Spotify streams.

Embers begins with a minimalist-style repeating piano figure accompanying floating dreamy Tenor range vocals. As the piano adds another octave of the same pattern, a quick but unobtrusive beat ensues, gradually increasing its profile while bendy bass notes also join the fray. The vocals expand to include some appealing harmonies and piano flourishes and tremolo strings add to the sense of gradually increasing momentum. There are some lovely cross-rhythms and imaginative harmonic language too. Ethereal, striking and gorgeously cinematic.

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FOUNDLING – New Years

We head to Berlin next where we find Foundling. She recently released her fourth album Equilibria (recorded in Belgium) and has been busy playing live dates, including Festaal Kreuzberg, and making videos. She has also played live in the UK and France in late 2023. She describes her music as ‘tropical romance and more’.

New Years gets straight to it with some otherworldly multi-tracked vocal harmonies that have an almost ghostly quality. The ensuing song begins with a sparse backdrop before extended keyboard chords join the bassline and beat, all the while with Foundling’s soft but assured soprano vocals occupying centre stage. There are echoes of Lynchian favourites like Ruth Radelet and Julee Cruise about the mystical style of the vocals and cinematic sounds that drift in and out of focus. Sophisticated, translucent and haunting in a most agreeable fashion.

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GEOGRAPHY OF THE MOON – Sometimes

To Glasgow now and ‘Post-Punk, Psych Wave, Shoegaze’ band Geography Of The Moon. The male-female duo have been lapping up the Internet Radio airplay. They have also been getting out and about with their live shows. With over 300 monthly Spotify plays as things stand, they are gaining traction and their extremely busy live itinerary even sees them heading off to Thailand soon.

I suspect the actual title of this song is simply Sometimes (judging by the style of their Soundcloud page). It begins with a surf-pop style guitar figure before we experience the contrast between quirky male vocals and distinctive female ones. The driving guitar in the chorus provides a shift away from the verses and a subtle tremolo effect adds a strong sense of finale. There is a slight air of B52s about the interplay between the voices and perhaps a little of Pozi and Public Practice about them too. Dark Alt Pop that also wears a smile.

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MEG ELLA – Goliath

To Wales we go, albeit that she is London-based, to find singer-songwriter Meg Ella. A favourite of legendary BBC Radio Wales presenter and champion of new music Adam Walton, she has been picked up by AWAL, the former indie distributor now owned by Sony. She has also been recently featured as the main guest on the BBC Radio London Breakfast Show and has been leading a vocal and song workshop in Frankfurt. Incidentally her social media includes regular video clips of Meg talking about her music which are well worth watching.

Goliath was one of the tracks that grabbed me by both ears on first listen when it landed in my in-box at the start of the week. My first instinct was to write a review of it for the next edition of my Trust The Doc blog which will be out on 30th April. As I said then, it will sound like a terrible pun for a track entitled Goliath but it is genuinely a giant of a track! Featuring her ‘Citizens of the World’ choir, this has a filmic jazz-infused sophistication that grows as the breadth of ideas become evident alongside quality musicianship. Meg’s vocals are enchanting, agile and expressive and the melody, like the accompanying chord progressions, is unusual and infectious. She packs so much creativity into less than three minutes of simply stunning music.

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SHAI BRIDES – Little Things

The next destination on our whistle stop tour of the weekend’s fresh faves is shrouded in mystery since Shai Brides describe their location somewhat ambiguously as UK. They have certainly wasted no time in picking up the reviews for the new single though and you can trawl through them on their Facebook page. There’s a humorous and cleverly conceived video on YouTube and they are getting out and about live. It may or may not be some clue to their actual location that the radio premiere was given to the excellent Brum Radio.

Anyway, as shy (or shai) as they may be about their whereabouts, there is nothing shy about their music. On the contrary, Little Things finds these brides whisking us up the aisle of their epic Pop adventure. From the opening a capella male and female harmonies, this is spaciously produced uplifting Contemporary Pop that sits somewhere broadly between the futurist vision of Everything Everything and the synth-soaked Alt Pop of Future Islands. Harmonised vocals, often in sumptuous quintal-quartal intervals, dominate against an expanding soundtrack of stretched out guitar chords, driving bass and drums and reverberant synths. Big, brash and beautiful.

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THE DIONYSUS ENSEMBLE – Windrush Reflections – 3. A NEW LAND

This is not my first encounter with The Dionysus Ensemble. Named after the Greek God of wine-making who was also God of a host of other things (!), this genuinely virtuosic String Octet have an amazing track record of working with intriguing collaborators; in particular bringing black artists and writers into their classical world including Calvin Ruan and Ayanna Witter-Johnson who is a Cellist and the creative force behind this astonishing Windrush Reflections suite of pieces. The Dionysus Ensemble have a well-deserved reputation across the contemporary art music world with high praise from the likes of BBC Radio 3’s Kate Dereham, Australia’s ABC Classic and others.

Windrush Reflections – 3. A New Land is another track that leapt out at me on first listen earlier this week. Not least the fact that here was a classical ensemble performing music that celebrated the momentous arrival of a large group of people who, along with the generations they have spawned (my wife included incidentally!), have brought so much cultural enrichment to the music and life of this country. The music begins with gentle counterpoint and lovely timbral contrasts between Baroque-like figures and percussive pizzicato before we hear elements of Calypso and other flavours subtly mixing in with a busy classical style. The very different roles of each instrument bring a sense of the hustle and bustle of city life to the story as the first Windrush arrivals adjusted to life in the UK. The melodic themes are joyous and the sweeping glissandi and triplet time figures add to the exotic flavour of the music. Imaginatively composed and arranged and performed with such energy and zest, this is an absolute breath of fresh air.

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WE HATE THE SHARKMAN – Bears In The Brig

Our next stop is Sheffield, a city I briefly resided in during the late nineteen eighties. Oops, showing my age now! It was certainly a long time before any of the members of We Hate The Sharkman were born! Two days ago they announced an extra gig due to popular demand which tells you they have some serious momentum right now. Indeed their live itinerary looks busy and their EP launch gig was sold out over a month before the gig took place! As both an artist and a live events promoter, I dream of things like that happening at my gigs! July saw them play at The Other Festival and they played Party For Peace a few months before that.

My first thought, when I come across a band like We Hate The Sharkman in which every band member is clearly of a top professional standard, is how did they manage to form a band together? Did they meet through working as paid musicians for other artists? Certainly the musicianship on Bears In The Brig is impressive as is the degree of creativity. From the opening horn figure in fifths and the ensuing funky drums, guitar and bass intro plus sweet organ chords, this is inventive Funk-Jazz fusion of a kind that, in one sense, takes us back half a century to the days of Mahavishnu Orchestra, Grover Washington Jnr and Jean-Luc Ponty to name a few. Equally there are elements of nineties Acid Jazz that nod to James Taylor Quartet, Galliano etc. But it all has a light-textured freshness and innate inventiveness that would sound cool in any era. The stabbing sax motif has a TV theme aura and the ideas keep coming. The instrumental interplay is goose-bumping but never self-indulgent and always with melody, contrast and energy at the forefront.

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WILD SPELKS – Help Myself

WORLDCUB – One Small Mistake

Finally and fittingly perhaps, we end up in Wales (the nation of my family origin) with the band Worldcub. Featured in the recent edition of Shindig magazine and played by Deb Grant and Tom Ravenscroft on BBC Radio 6 Music in the past few weeks alone, things are looking bright for these Welshmen. March saw them make the Mixtape on 6 Music and Adam Walton’s show on BBC Radio Wales. They have also been getting themselves out there with gigs and festivals including Focus Wales in Wrexham and Gwyl Tawe in Swansea.

One Small Mistake has a psychedelic feel. Built mainly around two chords, stabbing in parts, strummed in others, there is an organic freshness that, in one sense, looks back to a late sixties lo-fi sound a la Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd or Kevin Ayers but then, equally, it has a contemporary sparkiness that is closer to 86TVs or Orlando Weeks perhaps. Not that they sound like either. The melody is distinct and snappy and the band has an agreeably positive energy, adding up to a cool conclusion to a fine feast of fresh faves.

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PS from Del: If you want to submit a track for The Songbird Sessions please send an audio file and a bio to my email Please make sure it’s a CLEAN radio edit. Thankyou!

Del