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: Hey everyone, thanks to everyone who found time to come and vote on the listening post this weekend and special thanks to all the artists who submitted tracks last week.

I’d like to appeal to artists that make the faves as a reminder that while likes comments and shares on social media might help, they don’t help with bringing attention to what we do here, it actually requires people to come and check out the listening post and vote on their favourite five tracks. We deliberately don’t turn this into a popularity contest by telling people to get their friends to come and vote as that’s not fair on those who have a small following – so I’d like to ask two favours. The first being that the 90 day embargo rule is there to give other artists the chance to be heard so please do not submit another track until once this has expired.

The bigger favour is please support your fellow artists when the listening post opens on Friday. If you can spare half an hour to pick your five favourites they’d be grateful and so will we. Listening post closes at 6pm on Sunday evening.

Thankyou!

Onto the faves.

I have a very tall glass of orange juice.
My AirPods are charged.
Four lit and in the green.

Let’s go.

AROUND ABOUT DUSK- without you

This has such a World War II era jazz feel to it, none of the gloss that came later on, but the kind you’d expect in the background of a period drama. This could be playing in the background on a grainy gramophone, at 78RPM and they’ve captured this perfectly.

This is a song about missing someone, and given the time period this could be attributed to, this would be perfect for say someone that’s missing their lover while they’re on the frontline during world war II. This is truly vintage and Around About Dusk have captured it perfecty. For this reason this is awarded my chef’s kiss.

So who are Around About Dusk?

Around About Dusk is a five-piece Bristol-based band that blends New Orleans jazz, European folk, roots, and blues. Led by Rachel Lawrence on accordion and vocals, the group features Gus Dolding, Bill Frampton, Damian Keane, and James Guilford.

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BELLA CUTTS – Curious

This has some lovely guitar work on it which captures your imagination from the time it opens. It then gives way to a piano part really subtly and then drums bass and guitar comes in.
I like the tone of Bella Cutts’ voice, it’s husky and has a rich quality to it under those guitars, it’s a nice little blend! This shows how well produced this track is. The vocal harmonies are slightly higher than the main vocals and this again provides the basis for a perfect pop song.

The lyrics are stinging, going on the attack about a relationship that’s gone wrong, she does it in a way that you’d think she’s going for the jugular but she’s being surgical with her blade in this song asking why the other person wasn’t willing to come forth with the truth. This is a song that sounds sweet but you may want to dig into the lyrics before thinking that!

Bella Cutts is my one to watch.

Bella’s background is quite fascinating this is her second single, she was born in Switzerland to British and Argentine parents, raised across Sudan, Myanmar, Turkey and Switzerland, and now splitting her time between Devon and London.

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ERICA TUCCERI – Hey, Bear!

Erica Tucceri comes armed with her flute and she’s not afraid to use it! And the double percussion underneath it all is the thing that sold it for me. On a listening post that was uncommonly diverse LP, we had two tracks end up on the faves with percussion heavy grooves.

This has so many different elements, the drums build the track with synths and then interspersed within it are wordless vocals, but there’s a good reason for this because just when you aren’t expecting it the vocals become a flute as if mid conversation. That took me by surprise because you don’t notice the switch immediately it’s as if Erica’s showing us that she and her flute are one…

It’s poetical without meaning to be.

For this reason, this is my track of the week.

Erica is from Melbourne, a composer, producer and flautist. She has played at Ronnie Scott’s and has also led a 10 piece ensemble for the Melbourne International Festival.

Also she has a fondness for double percussion.

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FOLLY OH YES – Zombie Of Silicon Valley

Folly Oh Yes had me chuckling as their have a pun in their soundcloud bio folly your dreams indeed. This is a sparse track built around a guitar part, an electronic drum part and synths. It’s so simple and I thought it was pretty short but turns out it’s just over four minutes.

When I first read the title, it made me think about how the world has been turned into slaves to tech, heads down looking at phones or at coffee shops with their laptops out, and it’s exactly that, how the world has turned dystopian with the arrival of AI tech.

You could imagine this set to a video where people are sliding along the pavement like Jamiroquai’s Virtual Insanity which in itself was prophetic, but this song takes it further and makes you pause and think.

Who are Folly Oh Yes? They are an Oxfordshire-based indie/alternative music duo blending rock, folk, and electronica. Known for ethereal vocals and close harmonies, they emerged from the post-pandemic bedroom music scene and have received regular support from BBC Introducing Oxford.

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HYDROMAG – Changes

When I looked up Hydromag it showed the last time he made the faves was batch 410 that was the last time I reviewed him – Funnily enough it was actually just over five years to the day! That’s a lovely little surprise.

This is one of those tracks that sounds really hazy and dusty – perfect for a summer’s day. Built around a drum beat with tambourine to give it a bit of a lift, guitars, piano bass and synths what we have here is pure dream pop and it’s beautifully performed.

Hydromag is the alter ego Joshua Best-Shaw, a UK based producer and multi instrumentalist.

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KITTY PERRIN – Stood Up

Kitty Perrin is not only a singer songwriter she’s also a radio host in her own right, so her name rang a bell as soon as I read it during research. It’s been a while since she submitted a track and it’s quite an interesting one. I can hear the tone of what sounds like a sample of her voice being used as part of the instrumentation. It’s just a fragment but the audio is close enough to make me have that suspicion.

This starts out as an acoustic track until the drums and then that drops off into making this into an indie pop track.

Listening to the lyrics, Kitty refers to Lorde, and I’m wondering if she meant Audre Lorde, a civil rights activist. My first thought was the singer but it’s likely to be this person rather than the singer, either way it sent down a rabbit hole!

Kitty Perrin is a singer songwriter from Brighton, and has had new music programs on BBC 6 Music’s well as having a duccumentary on BBC Radio 4 about band breakups!

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KONGO DIA NTOTILA – Mathrobeat

I get the feeling Mathrobeat is not just the name of the track it’s a manifesto for the name of another subgenre of afrobeat – and why not? Congolese music is another thread of the traditional hi-life that comes from Africa so it’s just developed quite naturally.

This is an instrumental made up of bass, drums, guitars percussion and horns, this combines jazz, the aforementioned afrobeat and hi-life and this is compelling you to dance no matter what mood you are in it’s a stunning track that had me from the get go.

The progressions and melodies are complex and yes you will need a big calculator to work it out, but that’s okay it’s to keep your brain as well as your feet going.

Kongo Dia Ntotila is a London-based Afro-fusion band that plays “Kongo Jazz”—a high-energy blend of Congolese rumba, soukous, and ndombolo with contemporary British jazz, funk, and reggae. Neil actually reviewed them and they’ve been featured on FOTN as far back as 2016!

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SHOLTO, PHOEBE COCO – Everything Is Stolen Anyway

This song reminds me of a long forgotten track that’s been discovered in an Abbey Road vault from the early 1960s – this has chillout written all over it!

It has the quality of a Portishead track to it but without that overpowering reverb, I am currently enjoying an ice cold bottle of water and this is just helping the evening to cool down a lot more. This is the perfect summer groove, and Phoebe Coco’s voice over Sholto’s beat is the perfect pairing.

Sholto is a London based composer and artist that I have been featuring on my show for quite some time. He has a project called The Sirens which is well worth a listen this is a collaboration with Phoebe Coco a former fresh fave and definitely not a slouch when it comes to music, she’s also a radio host!

Love it.

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THE MIST CALLS – Stories Never Told

The blend of guitar, vocals and percussion makes this song just perfect.Again, the simplicity is what sells this song.

I like the lyrics:

Time dances like a flame,
It flickers and it knows the stories never told,
And it holds.

This song illustrates how time is a constant. companion, when everything else disappears.

One thing I want to note here is the way that the guitar gets bent slightly to achieve what I can only call a pitch bend – I’m a keyboard player not a guitarist so help me here hahaha! Whatever it is, it’s still very pleasing to the ear.

So who are The Mist Calls? The Mist Calls are an acoustic music duo formed by 19-year-old twins, Millie and Joe, from the North East coast of England. They are classically trained musicians who blend folk and jazz, featuring rich vocal harmonies and warm guitar melodies.

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TK WALLIS – Stranger At The Table

To close out the faves this week, we have a track that’s based around a dance beat with a heavy sub bass that really goes for your gut, but then this is the kind of track you’d expect to get the DJ to get the party started, this is a mood setter. What I like about this track is the pace it sets, it’s not aggressive however it has a tasty groove underlying everything, and I’m guessing this is one of the reasons why it was successful at the listening post. Overall, this brings together an overall set of faves that I’m very proud of.

TK Wallis is a British music producer and DJ known for his deep house and melodic electronic music.he’s also known for remixes it would be interesting to hear!

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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.