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

A word from Del: Thanks everyone for submitting a track to the inbox. If you have a track you’d like me to feature on my show on Islington Radio send me an email with a bio and audio file to del.owusu@gmail.com all genres welcome! Clean radio edits only.

AMILOST – Tiny War

As autumn starts to make its presence felt, this week’s Fresh Faves shimmer into being with the crisp chill of Tiny War, courtesy of Scots-Norwegian duo amilost. The song begins with piano notes that land as gently as the first few snowflakes until the whole thing hurtles open in an ambient avalanche, building to a soaring climax of strings and drums.

Vocalist Sigrid Zeiner-Gundersen says that Tiny War ‘is about the end of a relationship. It’s about trying everything to make it work, including changing yourself so much that you almost don’t recognise who you are any more. In the end, you realise that you have to let it go’. In this elegant fusion of sadness and catharsis, amilost have realised that thesis with panache.

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B OF BRIZ – Ruminant Julius Caesar

Bristolian hip hop powerhouse B of Briz has been a Fresh Faves regular from her very first release, and the piercingly intelligent Ruminant Julius Caesar shows us exactly why. Over winding jazz piano and puttering drums, the track both celebrates the scientific method and condemns the patriarchal culture that warps it – why aren’t there more songs like this?

B describes the track as ‘both a song about unconscious bias within research methodologies and science of deer social behaviour and organisation, but it’s also about the importance of being the kind of human being who’s truly open to others’ perspectives’. It would be easy to celebrate B for not following the herd, but as she explains, maybe we just need to look again at how herds work.

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JOSHUA IDEHEN – Mum Does The Washing

But one brilliant spoken word track is never enough, and next up we’re treated to this scalpel-sharp, very funny satire from poet and songwriter Joshua Idehen, an epic in under four minutes. You could describe Mum Does The Washing as a take on the old ‘you have two cows’ joke about economic systems, but Joshua’s version is completely his own and glittering with insight.

By grounding the core idea in everyday labour and gender politics, Joshua excavates a multitude of oft-ignored ideological injustices with unimpeachable wit. Not only that, it’s outrageously, hypnotically well-produced. Joshua’s poetry has featured on albums by Shabaka Hutchings’ sensational Sons of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming, but Mum Does The Washing proves that his work stands triumphantly on its own.

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KEYSIDE – Runaway

Springing into life with a jangle of pristine guitar which wouldn’t be out of place on a Lloyd Cole or Smiths record, Liverpool indie kids Keyside prove their Scouse pop nous on the impeccably catchy Runaway, a sub-three-minute package of adolescent angst. The music might owe something to the alternative heroes of the 1980s, but the lead singer ups the yearning by delivering the lyrics in a radio-ready soulful bray that belongs solidly to the present.

Keyside have already been championed by Craig Charles, had a slot supporting local legends Blossoms, and have got themselves a place on the line-up of new Liverpool festival Favourite Days in November. Like what you hear? Why not check them out via the links below?

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KORDA KORDER – What Have You Done?

What better way to mark the darkening nights and days than with a spellbinding song from Brighton’s self-described ‘indie witches’ Korda Korder? On the whole, What Have You Done? is more cosy than spooky, despite the lovely hangdog melancholy which laces the spindrift soprano of its lead vocal and the spare production which adds a ghostly edge to its comfortably earthy guitar.

It’s a perfect mix of chilliness and warmth, and should the track catch your ear, Korda Korder have some exciting news. Drop them an email and they’ll send you it to download for free! If they keep giving away tunes of this quality, they’ll soon have a very busy inbox indeed.

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LOTIDE – I’m Under

The wintry, stratosphere-scraping vocals continue into I’m Under, a lush and powerful art-pop offering from electronic duo LOTIDE. Written in response to lead singer Jenny’s diagnosis of breast cancer, the song navigates an incredibly difficult subject with arresting sensitivity and grace. Over its five-minute runtime, a soundscape of electronics, piano, and strings unfurls like a flower beneath those beautiful vocals, folding a host of genres in with it as naturally as possible.

The duo cite Sigur Ros, Kiasmos, Jon Hopkins and London Grammar as influences, and with its flickering synths and orchestral swells dressed in a silvery chainmail of piano pop, I’m Under wears these influences with pride while building on them to create something strikingly new. Prepare to be stopped in your tracks.

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MARCH – 45 (I Think About This All The Time)

You’re spoilt for choice this week if you like heartfelt, beautifully arranged ballads. London singer-songwriter Kitty O’Neal, or march, is here to bring us 45 (I Think About This All The Time). The song sees her precise, intimate voice floating over gently strummed guitar, climbing and falling in the sort of intervals you might expect from an understated showtune before breaking into a sweetly regretful chorus.

As 45’s artful structure becomes coloured in by warm bass (from Frazer Pearce), mewing pedal steel, soft piano, and military drums, it turns itself into the sort of song you can wrap yourself up in. What’s more, the single artwork is the work of illustrator extraordinaire Chris Riddell. A small treasure.

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SONOPHORIA – No Matter What

Should you fancy something to pick up the pace, Cardiff producer Sonophoria is here to blow the cobwebs away. Although they’ve been a regular name all year on Fresh on the Net’s Eclectic Picks, this is Sonophoria’s first ever outing on the Faves, and what a corker of a track to announce their arrival!

Sonophoria cites Avicii, Chemical Brothers & The Prodigy as their main influences, and although the euphoric synth whooshes that open No Matter What are certainly reminiscent of the latter, the track right-turns into the sort of tasty disco licks that were right there at the birth of house music. Laid-back though it may be, it glimmers and blazes like the Milky Way on a crisp clear night, a brief snapshot from a galactic voyage through dance music. Cosmic stuff!

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THE KAHUNAS – Bonnie & Clyde

As any Serge Gainsbourg fan will know, the music world is every bit as obsessed with notorious Great Depression bandits Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow as film and literature are. With their Pulp Fiction-referencing name and barnstorming, wild-roving folk-rock sound, Bristol’s The Kahunas seem to be the perfect band to pay another tribute to these two infamous criminals so beloved of pop culture.

This new Bonnie & Clyde strikes the perfect tone of cinematic adventure as it romps along. Although the production is carried out with breathtaking professionalism, all frontier-seeking guitars and siren-like fiddles, the craft underneath is so good that it would surely sound equally great rattled out from the back of a pub. Saddle up!

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TOBISONICS – The Voice Inside Your Head Wants You Dead

We bring this week’s Fresh Faves to a close with none other than former moderator Tobisonics. The Voice Inside Your Head Wants You Dead is a deeply personal release, but Tobi’s confessionalism boosts rather than obstructs his restless and playful imagination. He concocts a pop whirlwind of beepy breakdowns, vocal samples, electronic crackles, and New Musik synth quavers beneath a lyric which unflinchingly articulates the damage the mind can do to itself.

It’s as irresistibly catchy and textured as it is fearless. Tobi describes himself as making ‘powerfully uncool electronic pop grooves for sarcastic introverts’, and when the relentless positivity of so much dance music can turn toxic, The Voice Inside Your Head Wants You Dead is a much-needed, boldly original, and potently affirming corrective.

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PS from Del: 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 – 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.