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.

A word from Del: Hi everyone, thankyou to everyone who submitted tracks last week! It’s been a very strong week with quite a mixture of tracks from a retired piano player in Canada to a singer songwriter who feels welcome in the UK capital by the parakeets that guide her home. I truly do feel inspired.

As always dear artists now you’ve made the fresh faves please don’t submit another track for 90 days. Also fellow artists like yourself were among those who voted you into the faves please show your support and pay it forward by coming to vote on the listening post next weekend.

Thankyou!

On with the faves.

It’s Sunday morning, I’m sat in church waiting for the choir to arrive and I have a hot chocolate. I’ve taken a leaf out of Neil’s book and started reviewing the front runners.

Headphones charged.

Four lit and in the green.

Let’s go.

AZU YECHÉ – Weak

Azu Yeché opens the faves this week with something a little special.. This has the classic soul around it, I’d even go as far as to say this has neo soul vibes – it reminds me of D’Angelo with those guitar licks! Clean tone! Add to that strings that really lift up the arrangement! This song is about the aftermath of a failed relationship – Azu references parts of his life like when his father passes and wanting that comfort that a partner brings. This is a deeply personal song, and you can tell that neither side are willing to give up their pride to call and break the deadlock, the title is there to evoke an emotional response from the other person by wanting them to give in and pick up the phone to call. It made me laugh when I realised that as we’ve all been there at one point in our lives!

Azu Yeche is a London based British-Nigerian singer songwriter and is known for this vintage soul sound, which totally makes in his sound. He also mixes African folk and pop elements which is clear in his storytelling style.

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BITY BOOKER – Parrots In London

This song had me charmed from the get go. The title, for those of you who aren’t familiar with London, refers to the parakeets that have been in London since the 1960s, Bity Booker goes through the myths and urban legends of their origins. No one knows their true origin, but Bity has obviously done her research on this, like I have in the past – some say they came from Spain, or the rain or even from Jimi Hendrix’s cage. But ultimately only they themselves know where they come from.

In any case, Bity sees them as a guiding light and making sure she feels home when she sees them, and I get this – when you travel far and wide there are certain things that let you know that you are home.

I want to link this to be a bit of personal history, a few years ago I helped create some music for a video for Black History month, and when they were filming it the parakeets came in to shot right behind one of the actors in the videos just on cue when she referenced it – it was a beautiful moment. Even living in south London I see them flying around and it’s one of the little details you don’t really pay attention to if you’re going about your day in such a busy historical metropolis but when you see these things they make you smile.

This song certainly did.

Bity is a singer songwriter who’s based in London and Thanet, and her songs reflect her love for nature. Having googled her, the query came up with an interesting answer.

She doesn’t write songs.

She casts them.

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CABLE STREET COLLECTIVE – See The Way

One of my favourite discoveries on FOTN are back! This made my heart smile no end, because Cable Street Collective bring their brand of afro beat melded with jazz and rock to this track Fi’s in fine voice leading the band with a percussion laden track and the heralding horns blasting – This has summer festival written all over it and instead of hot chocolate I should be eating suya kebab with fried yam no supermalt while doing a little dance in the park.

Something to note, if you are not aware of who Cable Street Collective please be assured afro rhythms are written in their DNA. Their bass player Aaron Brown is the son of Gregg Brown, a member of the mighty Osibisa. I’ve said it before and I said it again, Aaron’s bass playing reminds me of Abe Laboriel with the two string playing and treating his bass as more than just a bass to hold down the rhythm and giving the track feet, but he’s turning it into a melodic instrument.

As for the horns, I think I may need to pinch them for a session because Lord can they play.

One other thing I need to say as it seems in the era that we live in with the rise of far right again, Cable Street Collective are named after The Battle Of Cable Street where a violent clash on October 4, 1936, in East London, when an estimated 100,000 to 250,000 local residents, Jewish community members, and anti-fascist activists united to block a provocative march by the British Union of Fascists.

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GUIDO SPANNOCCHI KAMMERMUSIK ENSEMBLE – Echoes Of Your Formal Education

What we have here is an instrumental piece that combines both jazz and classical music, Guido Spannocchi has assembled quite a collective as well as various instruments on this track, and could almost be seen as autobiographical from the title as he studied at Conservatoire of Vienna and Université Paris VIII – this could be construed as a nod to this.

This also puts in some latin rhythms in the track and he trades off between his saxophone and a vibraphone which gets a good workout on this track, not to mention shout out to the double bass player! For this reason I give this track my chef’s kiss award.

As noted, Guido has quite an illustrious background, not to mention being the artist in residence for Vogue Fashion Night Out Tokyo, and playing JazzFest multiple times.

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J. KAS – Magnificent Day

Our cover star this week, J. Kas brings a hip hop flavour to the faves. The beat is enhanced with a hard kick and snare along with J. Kas approaching the rap with intelligence, talking about his day and to make his life and everyone else’s that little bit better – aiding the elderly, making someone smile. He even drops in a deep cut reference with Moomins! That made me chuckle. There’s a tv series from the 80s featuring the Moomins and there’s a shop in Covent Garden that’s dedicated to them too which is very popular!

Lyrically, J. Kas stays close to his roots, having looked at the words and listened to the song multiple times he interweaves English slang with Jamaican patois, and the wordplay is artfully done.

This track is one for the summer, and is a certified banger.

J. Kas is from Sheffield, and is known for being able to drop into various genres from boom bap to amapiaon.

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ROLLO DOHERTY – Flowers

Rollo Doherty brings to the table a track that’s built around a bassline that I’m really fond of – from the tone to the rhythm. The drums are nice dusty like kind of tuned down a little and given that vintage tone to it, add to it the string arrangement to it. This song is suitably summery and suits the lyrics that come with it:

Lay with me in a park,
In the summer air,
Rain come down on the flowers
We’ll lie now they grow.

That’s the bit that caught my attention it gives it that nice late morning chilling in Greenwich Park before lunch at Viva Cafe feel.

Oh you’ve never heard of Viva Cafe? You need to go. They have great food options.

No they didn’t pay for this ad.

It turns out that Rollo Doherty’s multitalented – He’s a multi instrumentalist as well as being an animator and filmmaker.

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TAYLOR D – Survive

Taylor D comes to us with an indie rock track, and this is harrowing when you look at the lyrics, it’s quite harrowing when you read it, and I won’t go into the ins and outs but this can be a reality for people. It’s the contemplation of whether to call a partner or a friend and she’s literally on the edge, and it could be a phone call that can change things. This song is packed full of pain, and it’s a good way of being able to release your feelings and thoughts all in one track.

Taylor D’s voice is strong on this and isn’t hidden behind the big drums and guitars which sound great by the way. Great mix!

She truly delivers.

So.

Who’s Taylor D? Well, she’s from Dublin, and describes her sound as fearless songwriting.

I’m inclined to agree.

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THE KELLOWS – SAPHIRE

To Sheffield we go again for a track that seems to triumphant in its execution. And why not? The Kellows have been out in the USA, played SXSW London and been featured on BBC Introducing so why aren’t they allowed to be a little bit happy?

This is an indie rock track that starts off with tom rolls before they are joined with jangly guitars over the top, this has so much energy to it that you can tell this has the potential to be a bit of a hit for them on the world stage energy with the big sing along chorus!

This song is about a breakup and trying to reconcile differences, and being left to try and see it from each other’s point of view, as well as trying to put the point across that they need each other.

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TIM MCINNES – Penny In Rain (feat. Simone DeGree)

Ahh Tim McInnes. This man is a bit of a chameleon! He’s a really good piano player – Like REALLY GOOD, and in my opinion should get more recognition for what he does, if I’m honest. Why do I call him a chameleon? He’s really good at ragtime piano too, but this is far away from this. A retired man from Canada – little known fact – he actually started making music after he retired! Anyway he joins forces with Simone DeGree on a song that has a late 70s singer songwriter vibe to it. For me it’s the chorus that really touch me in the chorus, it’s rich in its tonality and reminds me a little of The Fifth Dimension especially in the way the harmonies are layered – think Let The Sunshine In. It really brings a warmth to this track and for this reason this song. Is my track of the week.

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WILLIE DOWLING – Carry On Refusing

I don’t think quirky can even begin to describe this song. It goes a fair pace, and calls to mind a bit of prog rock, ska, disco, even a bit of high theatre.

It’s mindboggling but that’s a good thing look at the faves this week, it just goes to show that our readers are very capable of putting together a blooming brilliant set of faves.

Being a piano player Willie Dowling’s track features this prominently bringing the ska feel to this, but then things do switch around really quickly as you go from hi-hats open full rock out vibes and then going into half time this track is packed full of it and I’m dizzy even the first pass after hearing it the first time! The laughter is sinister and I wonder if this is actually intentional as Willie was cooking this up in the studio like a mad scientist?

We will never know.

I wonder though… What would Graham Graham Beck and Willie be like if they were to collaborate?

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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.