Every week the team individually pick tracks that make up the listening post but there are always “ones that got away”.

These are the alternative picks and some words by our moderators on each one. You can find the tracks in one playlist here.
Alt Picks Document:

ARTISTS FEATURED THIS WEEK:

CHARLES
LOW BATTERY
LT MADZ FEAT. SHINE MC
TAROTARO
GOT.KNEES
CUTTY
AIKO DOVER
YELF.
FUNKE AND THE TWO TONE BABY (FEAT. BEANS ON TOAST)
YES TO ALL
AN DANNSA DUB
KAYBLE
SUMMER NIGHT AIR AND AKO
JACK BENJAMIN

ALAN DREEZER:

CHARLES – AfterParty

There are some brilliant production touches from Jaye Locke on this one, but it’s the layered vocals that really grabbed me. They give After Party a richness and depth that keeps revealing itself as the track develops. CHARLES already has an impressive CV too, having played Reading & Leeds and recorded a live session at Abbey Road no less!

Stylishly produced and definitely an artist worth keeping an eye on.

LOW BATTERY – The House On The Hill

There’s something incredibly calming about this track. The gentle flow, breathy vocal and atmospheric production create an almost hypnotic, dreamlike quality that completely draws you in. Piano and delicately plucked guitar add to that feeling without ever disturbing the stillness at the heart of the song.

Beautifully understated and wonderfully atmospheric — one to just close your eyes and get lost in.

DEL OSEI-OWUSU/PLATINUMMIND:

LT MADZ FEAT. SHINE MC – Sweet Games

I love the garage vibe on this, it took me back to the early 2000s, the beat gets you grooving and the flow along with the vocals just make you long for the long hot summers of 2001. I wonder what Mark Hill would make of this?

TAROTARO – 余白

Thank God for google translate! The title of this track means Blank Space in Japanese, I love the half time beat under the chilled jazz chord progressions. I’m hoping we hear more from Tarotaro because this really caught my attention.

GRUBBY:

GOT.KNEES – So It Happens

Take a mechanical beat with crazy bleeps, scrapes and fizzes, and add a slightly menacing vocal, and you have the soundtrack to one of my nightmares. There’s a wonderful simplicity to the melody, and all kinds of mind-bending ideas to enjoy.

CUTTY – Shadows In The Street

A quirky, lo-fi groove-fest, you’ll be nodding along to this one in no time. The pulsing bass line is great, and what a vocal – cavernous, melodic, evocative. Fantastic!

NEIL MARCH:

AIKO DOVER – Heathan

This track grabbed me because of the combination of Aiko Dover’s unusual vocal style and mannerisms, reflective lyrics and the dark synth-dominated musical backdrop playing off against a Hip Hop beat. Original and enigmatic.

YELF. – Brainrot.

Slightly discofied Synthpop with high register, ethereal vocals floating across the mix and a crunching beat, this got inside my head immediately. The tune is so insistent too.

PAUL KERR:

FUNKE AND THE TWO TONE BABY (FEAT. BEANS ON TOAST) – Roll With The Punches

On Roll With The Punches, Funke and the Two Tone Baby team up with Essex folk firebrand Beans On Toast for a collaboration that feels dragged straight off the festival circuit: muddy boots, sunburnt faces, hearts thump-thump-thumping. It’s a hyper boot-stomp sermon, a street-corner gospel for atheist priests who smell faintly of spilled cider, diesel fumes and unfiltered conviction.

Funke’s loop machine whirs underneath like a jury-rigged engine held together by tape and bloody-mindedness, while his vocal cuts through like a gravel-throated street preacher on a soapbox, pushing a rhythm that refuses to sit still. Beans On Toast leans in with that unmistakable half-sung, half-chanted delivery, the voice of someone who has spent enough time rock ‘n’ rollin’ to know how to punch.

YES TO ALL – The Challenged Ones

The Challenged Ones, from mysterious post-punkers YES TO ALL, is a wired, anxious slice of Turn On the Bright Lights-era Interpol, re-engineered for mid 2020s paranoia. All sharp angles and live-wire tension, it sounds like something sparking in a damp cellar, twitching just beyond the point of control.

The guitars scrape over a pulse perpetually on the verge of a breakdown, while the vocals deliver that cold, deadpan detachment that makes your skin prickle. Taut and troubling, with enough post-punk bite to leave a taste of copper, it sounds less like a song than a nervous system on the brink of overload.

SHERRY SAHAYARAJ:

AN DANNSA DUB – Trials & Tribulations Ft. Cahalen Morrison & Ciarán Ryan

The Trials & Tribulations has this Nordic folk vibe which is effortless and very groovy . The vocals on the track gave the song a very raw, cinematic and hypnotic vibe. The production stays energetic from the start to finish with a lively momentum, which is also my favourite part.

KAYBLE – Nothing Remains

“Nothing Remains” has this dark and mysterious, atmospheric vibe to it. The vocals are powerful, delivering the exact feeling the song requires.

TONY HARDY:

SUMMER NIGHT AIR AND AKO – Algorithms Of Loving Grace

There is an air of retrofuturism about this lovely slice of electronica. The mood of the piece took me back to OMD’s 2013 English Electric album with the computer-speak vocal parts reinforcing a sense that this is the future as imagined from the past. Or a future yet to happen? Either way, is AI really on our side? The recurring synth motif that opens the track anchors everything while the middle section is beautifully mellow. I can listen to this over and over again.

JACK BENJAMIN – Sea Dreams

Jack Benjamin is a new name to me but this little acoustic gem has a seasoned flavour to it. Maybe it’s the salt air. Whatever, you can almost hear the waves lapping in “Sea Dreams”. Jack has a supple timbre to his voice and a fluidity in delivery so his words waft along easily in a dreamy haze. His acoustic guitar accompaniment is wonderfully melodic and I especially like the way it is embellished towards the end with some filigree electric guitar subtly applied.