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

Word from Del: Hi everyone, welcome back to another week of faves! Thanks first and foremost to our fab readers for helping us to put it together, and to the artists for sharing your talents with us. As always, you can submit a track for consideration to my Islington Radio show drop me an email with a bio and audio file. Clean radio edits only!

Secondly please follow the Fresh On The Net instagram and Bluesky accounts and share with your friends and family.

AETHER SPEAKER – That’s For The Nosebleed

This had such a dreamlike calming effect on me while reviewing it. It’s drenched in sun, and fresh wind, it’s all down to the chord progression. This is what caught my attention initially, and it’s stuck with me since hearing it the first time. The guitars are suitably soaked in a bit of reverb as is the vocals, and the drums processed enough to give it a really nice balance.

Now, lyrically this surprised me – it’s an ode to having allergies! Very topical as it’s summer – or what passes for summer in the UK at the moment, but let’s have a look here:

“Allergies kick in,
Feel it on my skin,
Pollen in the wind.”

I’m wandering if this is a thinly veiled reference to something else?

Either way, it made me chuckle as someone who suffers the allergies when it comes to summertime and I found it quite surreal to be mentioning hay fever in a review. This is FOTN after all, anything can happen!

This is AETHER SPEAKER’s first appearance in the Fresh Faves, I can’t seem to find anything about their location online but they do describe their sound as being ambient psychedelic dream pop.

Indeed.

Linktree | Instagram | YouTube | Bandcamp

BALANCING ACT – Scar

Taking the tempo up a little bit, this next one is based around a drum n bass break, mixed in with a bit of indie pop and it’s a beauty of a track! This also contains a reference to medication – whereas “That’s For The Nosebleed” references the use of steroids for allergies this references Ritalin, a medication used for the treatment of ADHD. You come here for the music you stay for the learning experience…

I love the poetry of the lyrics:

“I owe it to the stars and the passing cars,
And the love you gave me that died from the start,
After showing symmetry lizards
That you’ve been living your life in halves,
Oh won’t you take my hand and my hand and my hand,
And I’ll show you from the start.”

The drums had me tapping my feet from the beginning and had me locked in, what a groove!

BALANCING ACT are a quartet originally from Manchester formed in 2022 and now based in London, they comprise of:
Kai Jon Roberts (vocals) and Jackson Couzens (guitar),  David Carpenter (bass) and Patrick Hanbury (drums).

Looking at their website they’ve had a busy time with live dates! Well done to them.

Official | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter/X | YouTube

CATBEAR – Who Cares?

It’s great to hear from a band I’ve kept my eye on for about four years. This track starts out with a beat that’s got a bit of an 80s influence, but then the lyrics bring you back to the present with the use of the phrase FOMO – Fear of missing out. Layered synths and guitars bring this together to make it a perfect indie pop song. This song could be considered a cry for help, when you think about the words, the song speaks about how you have to brave things out even when you don’t feel like it, and wondering if people will care if you’re there or not – you have to put on a public appearance so that you don’t miss out on anything.

In listening to this I’ve learned a new word – Semaphore! My favourite part of the song occurs at 1:42 with the guitar solo. All in all a fab listen!

CATBEAR are a duo from between London and Brighton, they are ambiguous about their location – but what I do like is that they are into eating coco pops and making playlists. That’s the way to my heart.

Official | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter/X | YouTube | Bandcamp

EDBL & MAYA LAW – Final Round

I actually cheered when this made it onto the faves, EDBL (Pronounced ED-BLUH) is a south London musician (Hello neighbour!) and I’m a big fan of his stuff, when I heard that he had a new single out – Well I got pretty excited. This track has the soulful vibes, the kind of thing that will get me going – this has a fender Rhodes on there, you have Maya Law on this as well and she sings her heart out, her harmonies are top tier – this is a recipe for a banger!

The beat is in pocket, you’ve got congas giving the drums something to groove on and the bassline is tasty, my favourite part of the song is at 1:24 where there’s a lovely and simple guitar solo that comes in, it’s the same line repeated so it doesn’t take away from the song.

So… This is my track of the week.

EDBL is a prolific collaborator having worked with over 100 musicians, he’s been featured on BBC Radio 1XTra, Jazz FM, BBC Radio 2 and so much more.

Maya Law is another artist I’ve been keeping an eye on too, she was featured on the fresh faves a few years ago now, and I’m happy to see her back! A singer songwriter with a LOT of skill this collaboration was inspired for sure.

Official | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter/X | YouTube | Bandcamp

FRANCES MISTRY – When I Look In Her Eyes

Serial Fresh Fave Frances Mistry is back with an acoustic number, this song is so gentle… one thing I love is the drum beat and the snare rolls, slightly off kilter giving you that dream like vibe. The lyrics talk about being lost but finding solace in someone’s eyes, I like the meta reference as she mentions that it all makes sense when she’s back in the studio. Her vocals are wistful and the harmonies that come through are gentle, this song is easy on the ears.

Just looking at the credits for this song, the drummer is martyn barker and in Frances’ own words “The drums are actually so sick in this track I’m stunned”.

I’m inclined to agree.

Frances comes from the land of overconfident seagulls, this made me laugh – aka Brighton. A “budding” songwriter?

Please.

Official | Instagram | Twitter/X | Bandcamp

GRACE DAVIES – Super Love Me

Ahhh close harmonies! I LOVE close harmonies! This is what opens up this track in the intro before dropping a heavy hitting drum beat under a gutsy bass line that pulses along nicely. This is a great piece of pop music, you have the strong chorus that makes you want to sing along and maybe even do a little dance routine. A vocoder is even deployed at 1:31 – I’m assuming it’s a vocoder because the processing makes it sounds like one, there’s also some strings that give it a bit of the Anne Dudley sheen…

This has given me a bit of a bounce in my step today!

The breakdown at 3:12 is perfect recalling the intro but with adlibs. I’m a big fan of the one snare hit in place of a full drum fill, it’s just so effective. The outro is stunning, I reckon that this could benefit from a remix with just the strings, but that’s just me.

Great work!

Grace Davies is a singer songwriter producer and musician from Blackburn, Lancashire, she’s got a healthy amount of listeners on Spotify and has a debut album on CD and vinyl on its way.

She’s my one to watch.

Official | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter/X | YouTube

LOST CHIMES – Now I Swim (Radio Edit)

Time to go a bit Celtic folk with this next one, Lost Chimes have been championed by Neil March on his show, and I am a bit of a fan myself. The monologue at the beginning eases us into a track. that melds folk laden with traditional acoustic instruments – is that a bodhran?
I love it!

The thing that really stands out for me is Gemma’s vocals, she sings with power and authority, for me this has the makings of a film soundtrack – especially with that monologue at the beginning you could just imagine this being set to an aerial scene in a periodic film something epic.

I really don’t know what to say about this because when I first heard it it kind of left me speechless because of the power behind it and I knew it would do well anyway, one of the things you learn about your team and your readers is that they are unpredictable in which way their tastes will go but sometimes you just know what will hit the spot – and this is one of those instances.

Lost Chimes are husband and wife duo Gemma and Nicky Kirk, this is the title track from their forthcoming album, and they’ve got it coming out on vinyl too which is available for order on Bandcamp.

This gets my chef’s kiss.

Official | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter/X | YouTube | Bandcamp

NO TV – Modern Life & Dancing

Time to get rowdy?

Yeah.

Why not?

This track has a bit of a party atmosphere at the beginning, and then explodes onto the scene with a hard hitting track that switches between indie rock into indie disco for the chorus, over the top the vocals are spat with venom, the chorus is going to stay with you, because there are some ear worms that will catch you unaware. For instance there’s an 808 cowbell that punctuates the “This is modern life and dancing” hook – yes the 808 sound is not just a kick, or even a bass, the 808 cowbell was one of the defining sounds of the 80s! The way that the track switches up to a more rockier pace that I wasn’t expecting at 2:55 and it just shows you that NO TV have no intention of standing still when it comes to crafting fine tunes, you could almost visualise the mosh pit going wild when this starts up.

NO TV are from Margate – Hey I’ve got connections down there! Must pay them a visit at some point this summer…. They describe their sound as dance and punk.

That makes sense.

Linktree | Instagram | YouTube

SO SO SAD – Butterfly Wing

Time to slow the pace down a bit… This next one is built around a synth part, electronic drums and a guitar, plus the vocals. This is so simple and that’s one of the many things going with this song. While there are complex arrangements represented in the faves this week, this one’s just stripped back to its bare minimum. The vocals are barely a whisper, and you can tell this is intentional given the title of the song.

The line that really gets me is “Tomorrow isn’t promised” and I’ve become very painfully aware of this, and it resonated with me, I can’t get past that. Life is fragile.

I don’t think I can add anymore to that.

So So Sad is the new project of Catherine Rudie and Chris Brambley, Catherine is from Sutherland on the North coast of Scotland and Chris is from Southampton – I’d love to know how this collab came together! Both have achieved a lot, Catherine being a former bagpipe player, and Gaelic singer and Chris being a classical guitar player and and former member of leading London chamber choir Collegium Musicum of London. This is quite a switch around to what they’ve achieved here.

Instagram

VERA SACRA – Take My Place

Vera Sacra brings us a track that is synth laden, even down to the drum machine laying down the rhythm. Add to that her vocals, which are just gorgeous. The lyrics are a complete contrast, this song carries pain:

“You took me to a dark corner away from my friends,
I couldn’t walk straight
For you it didn’t matter
To get what you want.

I wanna build a sacred place to shield my body,
I wanna burn you at the stake just take my place.”

I hope this goes a long way to helping ease that anger.

Vera Sacra is the alias of Emily Marks from Sheffield, looking at her instagram she’s been experimenting with working with tape, and splicing – if this is how she created this track then that’s pretty solid!

Official | Instagram

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.