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.

Hi everyone, this week I took the decision to step in to do the reviews for many reasons, but the main one being that I find music very comforting, and writing my thoughts down helps. For those of you who don’t know I lost my dad in November, which means I’ve not been able to promote FOTN as much as I’d like.

I’d like to take this time to thank my team for helping and pulling together when needed.

My show will return in the new year.

We have ten interstellar faves to break down.

Enjoy.

CHOLLY – Fungus

We open the faves with an artist who’s been here so often she may as well be part of the furniture. This track shows off Cholly’s trademark ability to use her vocals as an instrument and using Ableton, she manipulates the sound, it becomes percussive as well as a synth part on its own.

Add to this strings, and you’re right in the middle of a cinematic soundscape that’s one hell of a journey!

It’s all very dreamy and I like that, it’s very relaxing, mixing electronica with acoustic moments, the two meld together well.

Cholly is the artistic name of Chloe Tennant, a UK-based electronic pop singer-songwriter and producer known for her experimental, “cinematic electronic pop” sound. She creates unique soundscapes by sampling and redesigning organic sounds, including her own voice, violin, or keyboard. 

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EDUARDS OZOLINS – Lullaby

Time to slow things down now this is an instrumental piano piece, backed with a choir very gently in the background acting like a pad. This is a very short piece clocking in at 1:26 and does what it says on the tin, it’s a lullaby and a gorgeous one at that. We don’t get many classical pieces that make it to the faves very often but it’s nice to hear that diversity. This is gentle, and reminds me of what you’d hear just to relax you this is something that would be perfect for a chill out playlist. A lullaby indeed.

Now this could surely be a first. EDUARDS OZOLIŅŠ’s twitter profile states that he is involved in public diplomacy for the US Embassy in Riga Latvia. He’s very passionate about piano and music composition.

Blimey.

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JAMES HUMPHRYS – Lights On

This starts off with a sturdy drum beat, setting the tone for a track that gets you grooving subconsciously. It’s got a loose shuffle to it, and that’s what attracted me to it initially, there’s also a lovely whistle in there which makes me question whether this is done by synth or it’s a human whistle either way it’s ethereal which is quite a contrast to what we have here.

I love the layered vocals on this, and the textures it passes through, my favourite part of the track is at 2:24 as it goes into a bridge, section taking us into a breakdown at 2:56 over some cleverly mixed guitars. At this point the vocals are soaked in a little reverb and taking us to the outro. This is just an awesome track.

James Humphrys is a Bristol based singer songwriter multi instrumentalist and producer, this is a track that came out back in November.

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LANCE FERGUSON – Dominoes

It’s been a while since we jumped in the DeLorean, this time the time circuits are set for the mid 70s. The horns come in nice and punchy, over a rhythm section consisting of drums percussion, and guitar, then there’s a gospel choir section which kind of reminds me of Harlem, pre hip hop scene just before all that kicked in. But you can tell that if you were listening to this in the 70s then you’re right in the maelstrom of where this would be sampled for a fledgling MC to take the mic and set the dance floor alight. The drum break towards the end is testimony to that. I love the fact that there’s a hammond organ on this, I do like my Hammonds I’d love to get my hands on a real one and jam out!

Lance Ferguson is a veteran musician from Australia, a guitarist whose work spans across 43 – YES FOURTY THREE albums – plus over 100 singles, plus winning ARIAs – an ARIA is the Australian version of a Grammy.

This is huge.

HUGE.

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LE JUNK – The Internet

Back into the DeLorean we go and this has a bit of an 80s new wave influence to it but combing some 21st Century synth magic in there, that bassline up against the squealing guitar is testimony to that. The contrast is enough to give you that feel, I wonder if this is influenced by Billy Idol by any chance?

I like the punchy drums on this, it’s straight ahead, and if it’s not electronically programmed I’d be surprised because the tempo is locked in. Four on the floor, very retro and no hi hat too – that’s a solid choice.

Given the way that the internet is now, with Australia announcing that they’ve put a restriction anyone under 16 accessing certain social media this is quite topical.

Le Junk is from London, and has gained attention from BBC 6 Music.

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MAMAS GUN – Food For The Flames

Back to a bit more soul, very much in the 70s, late era Motown with that melodic bassline – James Jamerson would cuss you out for this, but at the same time he’d nod and appreciate what’s going on. The soul of the vocals is what sells it for me. The guitars are really clean until we get to the chorus, at 1:12, and boy is it a chorus!

It also gives me a call back to early Earth Wind And Fire – if you only know the hits like “September” and “Boogie Wonderland” you’re doing yourself a disservice by not looking up their early material. Take yourself back to 1971, and listen to the psychadelic soul of their first album and you’ll get what I’m referring to here.

Lyrically this is a song about keeping passion alive – whether it’s about someone that you love or about something you care about deeply. Look at the lyrics for the chorus:

Cause you’ve got to feed a fire,
Keep It burning night and day,
We’ve come too far to turn
Our backs
To let it die in vain,
You’ve got to feed a fire,
Diggin deeper every day to make
Food for the flames.

This song can be applied anywhere in life.

Mamas Gun come with a wikipedia page! They are a pop soul outfit from London, they’ve been together since 2007, and currently have a new album coming out, their fourth in fact.

Now, if I was a betting man I’d buy a lottery ticket tomorrow…

Why?

I’ll tell you in the next song….

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MAN AT SEA – Sunday Evening

For some reason this song has given me some kind of excitement. Full disclosure I love Sundays, it goes back to the days of recording mixtapes for school the next day, when I was 14 years old I’d write letters to my penpal who I had a crush on while doing this. These days I have a radio show on a Sunday evening built on the premise of Sunday evenings, 6:30pm – which in some households is dinner/bathtime/prepping for the week, so I see it as a soundtrack to ease you into the week.

The lyrics reflect this:

Lights fading, Sunday evening
That’s the feeling I believe in
Silence falls on playing fields
And condensation on the windows
Call the boys in, night is coming on

This is so gentle, I love the low down groove and the piano chords it’s just kept simple, and I love the strings that come in, this is making me want to sit back with a hot chocolate and take myself back to my childhood in my head to simpler times back to that awkward teenager who was a little bit geeky.

This is a stunning song, I can’t wait to hear what else Man At Sea has to come next.

So why did I leave it until now to expand on my lottery ticket buying?

Well, this is exactly the same key as Food For The Flames, it made me smile.

MAN AT SEA is from Bristol, it’s the alter ego of David Hewson, he discovered Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club and the rest is history.

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OJ LAW – GLOW

Now this is a very interesting one – we are in a world of turmoil with buyer’s regret being the term of the day politically which is why the first verse of this song really resonated with me:

I’m an emotional landslide
I’m an improbable candidate to vote for on the other side
I feel illogical
No need to explain because I can’t decide
I feel impossible
Lately

This has quite a retro feel to it, and I like that for this song, the synths give it away, along with the electric piano I like the twang of the guitar too – Johnny Marr influence there maybe?

OJ Law is an artist from Malaysia, he’s got some behind the scenes videos about how his tracks were made on instagram definitely worth checking out.

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SHRIMP EYES – Birds

Interesting band name! What I like about this song is the chord changes in the verses, and the off kilter beat, don’t go looking for the downbeat, it will baffle you but I think it’s in 6/8 time.

This song soars, and the melody in the verse makes me think of Bjork with a touch of Beatles in there too especially the way that it constructs the harmonies.

This could easily be one of my favourite submissions this week.

Shrimp Eyes don’t have much to go on via their profile, only saying keeping it shrimple on their spotify bio, I appreciate the pun but puns don’t give us much information. However after some digging it turns out they are a four piece from London.

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YELF. – Loud

To close the faves this week, we’ve got a bona fide indie track as that’s as indie as they come, it leaves you feeling cold and on this roller coaster of a ride of the faves sometimes you need that when you wake up. Lord knows I need this today.

The lyrics really do know how to elicit questions don’t they?

Are you going to love me the way i want?
how will i know if you keep your mouth shut?

well, i won’t know

do you think there’s a quiet way to love?
well i don’t know ‘cause you keep your mouth shut

oh, i don’t know
oh, i don’t know

It’s like YELF has been here before and can predict what’s about to be said and done, so she’s giving things another go but making sure the person this song’s about knows that she’s been here before and is fully aware.

The interesting part of this is that she references the other person writing songs for her – this is perfect storytelling you’re leaving more questions open so where has this come from where is it going?

Beautiful.

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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.