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: Hello everyone! Welcome back to our run of faves up to Christmas! And what an opener. Thanks to all the artists who submitted tracks in the full inbox.

I would like to make an appeal to everyone who make the faves. As you can tell, the faves aren’t decided by one person, and I’d love for you to be actively involved, we open the listening post early on Fridays purposefully for this reason and keep it open until 6pm on Sunday evening, please help your fellow artists – it’s not a competition – we purposely ask artists not to tell their friends to come and vote for them as that would defeat the point of what we do here. If you can come and check out the first listening post when we return and vote for your favourite 5 tracks that will be helpful.

Shares and likes are nice, but if we rely on just shares and likes alone we wouldn’t be able to function. I will tag you on social media as a reminder of course. Thankyou!

If you choose to share this, please tag the correct instagram accounts, @fotnblog and myself as the writer my account is @platinummind

Onto the faves!

EDBL, ADY SULEIMAN & DAN WHITLAM – When You Were Mine

EDBL is back in the building and suitably kicks things off with a track that’s nice and sparse – bass, guitars, vocals and drums. The bass has a dubby feel to it making it cross over from hip hop into reggae, into jazz, and it’s nicely executed. I was asked recently what my track of the summer is, and this is one them, it’s just really chilled out. Most of you will know that I listen to music a lot on my commute, and I like the fact that I can listen to something chilled out while there’s absolute chaos around me in central London people running from train to train, etc.

The first thing you hear is the falsetto and that gets you going, you can tell there’s an influence of D’Angelo in there as well as Marvin Gaye and maybe a touch of Maxwell.

This song is about a past love that the writer is pining for, and knowing that he’s punching above his weight and that she deserves better. It’s a great little love song, and EDBL goes to town on the acoustic guitar solo towards the end!

YEP.

This track deserves my chef’s kiss.

EDBL did not come alone on this – he broughtAdy Suleiman his best friend for over a decade and a half and Dan Whitlam for the journey, and together did a sterling job.

EDBL is not a stranger to FOTN, a producer and musician from London, has his own record label with Faves alum Hapin Usuwo as one of his signings.

I’ve got a lot of love for his music and can’t wait to hear more.

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GENE MADOC – This Might Be The Start

Gene Madoc brings us a haunting track that you feel in your soul, the acoustic vibe gives you the feeling of late 1960s, but at the same time mid 90s indie rock and that ambiguity is what makes it a pretty special track for me. it reminds me a little bit of Nick Cave both lyrically and musically, and that’s certainly not a bad thing.

Talking of ambiguity, the lyrics could be about someone or something –

I wanted you out of my system
I wished you into my life
Said things I could not live up to
Whispered secrets too late into the night
I love you, I love you, I love you
And I need you to prove I am not lost.

Maybe I’m overthinking but maybe it could be a song to address an addiction – that could take many forms, so I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but also this could be a toxic relationship that needed to find closure. Whatever it is Gene has shown true penmanship.

Gene Madoc is a singer songwriter and musician from Cardiff, who draws influence from literature and cinema in his music.

Official | Instagram | YouTube | Bandcamp

HYDROMAG – Everyone Else

Hyrdomag brings us a track that is layered with swirly guitars over synthesisers I love the rhythm arrangement of this as well. That’s what makes this song for me, as well. This is very indie pop and starts as it means to go on. At the beginning you hear ride cymbals over the wall of sound to a cymbal swell before the drums and bass com in,

Lyrically this song talks about making new changes and being committed to those changes – growing up, moving on, having to burn bridges in order to stop looking back and having self doubt.

One thing I’d like to highlight is the vocal arrangement with the call and response!

Nicely done.

Hydromag is Josh Best-Shaw and he’s a multi instrumentalist from Falmouth.

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JOHN SERRANO – Garden Of Sin (ft. Zurdeik)

John Serrano is a Spain based musician who is familiar to those who listen to both and mine and Neil’s shows as well as being Neil’s label mate at Monochromo Motif Records and he returns to the faves with a song singing in d deeply rich tone. In this song he brings Zurdeik along for the ride and she adds a great countrerfoil being higher in octave to him blending together a great melody.

This is a rock track that features a horn section, the melodies switch between major and minor, deploys chromatic melody runs as well as even throwing in a classic Motown groove in there too. The dead stop catches you off guard too but that’s all down to the creativity at work here it’s to keep you wanting to listen to it again just in case you missed something.

The line that I loved in this song is

I never want to sing again,
If it’s not for you, if it’s not for you,
I never want to write a song that’s not for you,
That’s not for you

Love it!

Instagram | Twitter/X  | Bandcamp

KITTY O’NEAL – Not At The Same Speed

I love the way that this begins, there’s a turn on the dial that tells us that Kitty O’Neal’s changing the station – I haven’t fully investigated this yet but if I was a betting man I’d say that the tracks that are hinted at during the station hopping are previous or future tracks of hers so it’s like a bit of promo. very cleverly done!

Anyway we settle on a tune that we really like, and it starts off as if coming out of a transistor radio before coming up fully in a 21st Century audio quality, based around piano with guitar being teased at the edges. I like the time signature on this, before the drums come in and it’s in 6/8 time. One thing to note, someone’s a very strong whistler! Kitty O’Neal is no stranger to FOTN, she’s also been shortlisted for Glastonbury Emerging Talent and Purbeck Rising, and is a busy touring artist too. This track is from her EP of the same name.

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LILY WARD – First Move

I actually reviewed this for my track of the day on instagram the week before it was submitted to the faves, this is what I had to say about it. My mate Lily Ward dropped a new single on Friday and unsurprisingly it’s a good one! This combines dream pop elements with drum n bass beats, carrying her delicate vocals but don’t let that fool you as because when she hits the chorus she’s in her element – what Lily is demonstrating here is the still small voice inside – this song is about being vulnerable, and putting your feelings out there and telling someone – ummmm… I love you. Lord knows we have all been there, where you don’t want to get that soul crushing rejection. This is very relatable lyrically and musically it’s very accessible. I have to applaud the mix for this track because you hear elements of Lily’s voice becoming an instrument on its own, it’s part of the synth pad. The panning reveals that, and the vocal arrangements make this into a very sophisticated song – great production values and great overall performance. Well done Lily!

Lily Ward is a singer songwriter based in London, a multi instrumentalist and someone that I’ve known for a little while – GREAT taste in drummers.

She’s also my one to watch.

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MARINA ROLINK & WILLEM MCKIE – I Am The Night

I wsa so happy when this song made the faves, as it has one of the strongest melodies I really enjoyed through the inbox last week. This is a folk offering from Marina Rolink and Willem Mckie, and it’s set against guitars and intricately layered vocal harmonies, it seems that they substitute each other towards the end – I’m wondering if they’re influenced by CSNY? I’m not sure but it kind of gives me that “Our House” feel. It’s funny that my brain went directly there, because just reading the EPK for it, the song is about the changing landscape of life but the constant pull to home.

Sweet Lord, this song is achingly beautiful.

So.

This is my track of the week.

Marina and Wilem are singer songwriters and musicians from Scotland, and have been writing and recording material as solo artists as well as being in various bands.

Marina Rolnk
Instagram | Bandcamp

Willem Mckie

Instagram

NOÉ SOLANGE – Stay

Noe Solange hasn’t made the faves since batch 507! This track is atmospheric, packed full of synthesisers and providing the backdrop for Noe to sing wistfully. This song is about asking someone to stay, even for a little bit of time.

The analogue synths bring out the nerd in me, you can hear everything swirling around in the track but it still draws you back to Noe’s voice – and what a lovely voice too. The beat is steady, but watch out for when the track switches to half time towards the end for the outro.

Stunning.

Noe Solange is a singer songwriter and producer from London with Dutch and Indonesian roots, I actually interviewed her six years ago! Check out our conversation here.

Instagram | Facebook | Bandcamp

SEADOG – Into The Night

Second song themed around the night in the faves this week! This track has a lot going on and I actually discussed it with the band regarding the vocal part which is what caught my attention because again this has multiple layers like the call and response in the second verse, apparently that was a late addition into the production. The song is overall heavily dreampop, this has the feeling of being recorded old tape, just to give it that surreal feeling. There’s also a very trippy video that’s worth watching!

Seadog are from Brighton, and they have gotten the nod from luminaries like Lauren Laverne and that’s always a good thing!

Instagram | Facebook | Twitter/X | YouTube

SUKI QUASIMODO – Power

Suki Quasimodo closes out the faves with a song that starts off with a solo vocal, under which there are sound effects like oceanic sounds plus birds tweeting, over this the sounds made up of possible beatbox, Suki literally turns herself into an instrument! There are parts of this that are blowing my mind for instance Suki turns her voice into a lead synth to achieve a beautiful solo.

The lyrics deliver a simple message:

“You hold all the power.”

See?

Simple.

Suki Quasimodo is a London based Singaporean artist. She’s also a DJ and known for her adventurous sets that pay homage to UK club music.

Instagram | Bandcamp

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.