Choices Of The Grasshopper November 2020

Any artist is welcome to send us a track via freshonthenet.co.uk anytime between Monday lunchtime and Thursday morning (or when we receive 200 submissions, whichever is sooner) - and all our moderators, including Tom Robinson, will listen to every track. This is our full inbox from the week beginning Mon 30th November: from Friday afternoon you'll be able to hear our shortlist and pick your favourites on this week's Listening Post which will appear at freshonthenet.co.uk/batch388

If a track you submitted does not appear in this list, it’s probably because another of your tracks appeared in our Fresh Faves or on the BBC Music Introducing Mixtape during the last three months — we ask that artists featured on either wait three months before resubmitting to give others a chance. We also don’t accept short previews or SoundCloud GO tracks that can only be heard as 30 second previews, and tracks made private after submission, which cannot be included in playlists. You will be able to resubmit the track in future. Tracks that have been previously submitted and tracks from banned artists will also be removed.

Christmas tracks are set aside for our annual Christmas track roundup playlist which will be posted on Christmas week.

ENTIRE INBOX: Batch 388

Thanks to everyone who came by Fresh On The Net at the weekend to check out  Listening Post 388 and tell us which tracks they liked best. Here, in alphabetical order, are our readers' top favourites. Our reviews are written by Fresh On The Net's Neil March - and you can read them at http://freshonthenet.co.uk/faves388

Fresh Faves: Batch 388

12 tracks, written and released month by month throughout 2020.

2020 Tracks

ECLECTIC PICKS - 2020 (Freshonthenet)

My weekly 5 picks from the @freshnet Listening Post for 2020.

Tobi's Fresh Net Favs 2020

They told me to dream big
So I dreamt of the sun
And its gravitational pull
its gravitational pull
And all the life it breathes into everything
And its gravitational pull

How can I ensure when I am fully grown
That the Milky Way will make room 
So that I can ever-glow?

How can I be centre of this universe 
(I know I know)
How can I be anything but disappointed?

(I can't match up, I can't match up, to any of my own...)

And now it's reached the stage
Where I am jealous of birds
and their levitational art
and their levitational art
And how their lightest hearts
Can help them reach the stars
and their levitational artistry

How can I ensure when I am dead and gone
That my legacy endures
My reputation twinkles on?
How, when I explode, can I shoot eight million eons?
Then how can I get further still?

(and yeah, I think I was about 16 when I learnt about the greeks and mythology and how they could talk mostly deeply about what it means to be a human being... and I learnt about Icarus and all of those events before his fall.... and I wondered... and I kept wondering.... and I kept wondering... how he must've felt in those few minutes just before he melted... to be the highest one... to be the highest one... to be the closest one...)

Icarus

From the new album 'Seven for A Secret' out 01/01/20 in all digital stores. The first track on the album, it sets the scene for what's to come. The album tells the tale of two murders from the perspectives of the people involved. Produced by Gavin Monaghan (The Blinders, The C33's, Pagans SOH)and recorded at Magic Garden Studio, Wolverhampton. The album started life as a rough screen play which spawned a song and grew into a full album. Next stop is a graphic novel and/or video clip if funds allow.

Seven For A Secret

THE BALLAD OF BROKEN BONES

The Ballad Of Broken Bones

Burden

Fire On At Me - T.E.G


“I’m on my way home, I want to get back,
I know it feels good, and I don’t wanna leave”

Fire on at me if you don’t have more to say
Come and get it cos you’ve got nothing to stay
You and I both know that it don’t work this way
Put your gun down, I put mine down, put them away
We both got reasons but these reasons aren’t enough
It’s my vendetta and yours, you just had it rough
But things are changing and though I know it’s tough
Put your gun down, I put mine down, put them away

Here we are -  away from home
I close my eyes I visualise 
I wanna go home
Not on your own - but fighting solo
The end is near, I feel the fear
I wanna go home

We take our prisoners who just want their release
They say they’re sorry but we’re not easy to please
Their freedom’s ours and we’ll sort ‘em out with ease
Put your gun down, I put mine down, put them away
Any action will so make you pay the price
So no decision is without sacrifice
Just ‘cos I pity doesn’t mean I am nice
Put your gun down, I put mine down, put them away

Feel these tears, they’re filled with rage
Fell off my horse I’ve got back up
I wanna go home
Don’t pretend, that your not scared
This war right here’s been on years
I wanna go home

Don’t think you can stop me
I am trying and succeeding 
You cannot see me I’m invincible
And I stop stop wanna come home

Fire On At Me

Lyrics

V1
paint me in colours that you want to see
I'll be the person that you wanted to know before you met me
and I'll hold your hand until my blood runs blue
I'll be the person that you wanted to know, the girl you once knew

Pre Chorus
oooooh what am I to do
call me crazy but I'm just a little stuck on you

Chorus 
oh I'd mould my brain to fit with yours
and I'd sing this song until my lungs are sore
oh I'm sorry if you're bored of questions 
and second guessing
oh I'm hopelessly asking for more
cause I'm not sure I love you really means that much at all

V2
tell, tell me something is on your mind 
cause I can't talk for the two of us and I know something isn't quite right
and is this how I'm meant to spend my time
oh staring into dead eyes wondering if I cross your mind

Pre Chorus
oooh what am I to do
call me crazy but I guess I gave it all for you

Chorus

Outro
oooooh what am I to do
call me crazy but I just can't give it all for you

ALEX CARROLL- Paint Me In Colours

Somewhere in Britain there’s an imaginary station. There, just past the platform, in a small office, beside a beige melamine desk and a brown tipped, slightly neglected spider plant, is a door. It’s the door to the National Lost Property Office. 

Inside it’s huge. Much bigger than you’d think. There are oversize pigeon holes for each and every type of thing which could be, or has ever been, lost. 

That’s where I found this song. It took a while, but there it was, arranged neatly between lost remote controls and lost identity. 

Everything lost will be found again in time.

Everything Lost Will Be Found

REMIX EP
Buy - https://jaeleesmall.bandcamp.com/album/memoirs-part-ii-remixes
Stream - https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/jaeleesmall/memoirs-part-ii-remixes-2

Official Video -https://youtu.be/MHSrsHqCCeM

Spotify -https://open.spotify.com/track/1TKqIKzHFmWLB9vyHF7Cbz?si=pNj9iG9iTGKCr1P8DfmbSA

Memoirs (part ii) Remixes

Memoreveolody (_Holmesly_ Remix)

01 Memoreveolody ( Holmesly  Remix)

Things come along every now and then. Things which change you. They change you and your life down to the very atoms. 

The Bronze Gorge is about that, plain and simple. 

It’s track 2 of twelve and it’s free to download.

The Bronze Gorge

The Situation

Colours In The Rain

Track 5 of 12 in the Bitmap 2020 odyssey.

Riches Come and Go

Mysteries Of Life

Dominions of Glue - A new group of Bristol reprobates release their debut album 'The Great Expansion' later this Summer.

Henry

Aliens are leaving planet earth, they've had enough of trying to teach us to see the error of our ways.

It Really Is A Pity

Far Away

Tightrope is about the push and pull of a dysfunctional relationship. It’s the committed devotion two people share regardless of the built-up resentment and fighting that threatens to rip it apart at any moment. Knowing it's over but not wanting to make the call.

Tightrope

Watch the talk show numb yourself numb yourself
Watch the talk show numb yourself numb yourself

Put your doubts in a box
take a blue pill and a walk
just pretend that you never saw anything at all
Put your doubts in a box
take a blue pill and a long walk

-----------
all music and words by Antony Walker
Recorded in Jersey @ Mapley St.
Mixed by Jeroen Nees @ Wooolf Sounds (Belgium)
Mastered by Jeroen Nees @ Wooolf Sounds (Belgium)

buy mp3/wav

In Ruans

Machine EP

Machine

Antidote to Being Bored

Lighting Up (Dia De Los Muertos) is taken from the 5 track DARK HOURS EP which is available now from all digital outlets. It plays like a Day of the Dead parade via a truth or dare game of Russian Roulette. It's a nostalgic tune that's big on hooks. Produced by the legend that is Gavin Monaghan at Magic Garden Studios in Wolverhampton and recorded 3rd October 2020 on a wet and cold day. 

Track trivia : The tambourine that you can make out low in the mix used to belong to T-Rex front man Marc Bolan.

The rest of the EP was produced by Joe Chalmers (aka PUKK) at his bedroom studio (better known as the House of Blews) using a £10 acoustic guitar from local ads, a Windows 7laptop that boots every 9th attempt and free software. It's about as DIY as it gets. Even the cover art was made on a phone using free apps and some imagination.

Dark Hours

Dark Hours EP

Lighting Up (Dia De Los Muertes)

14th Floor

The Less I Know The Better (Cover)

Ortus

Downtown is a song about personal freedom in this crazy COVID era a song that looks forward to better times to come!
Featuring the amazing vocal talents of Taylor Jackson who has worked with The Brand New Heavies, Gorillaz and Nicole Scherzinger.  A tour de force in her vocals which has really added to the tracks soulful and energetic vibes!

Downtown MASTER 24bit 44.1kHz

The Saint of 9th Street

Track 11 of 12 

A crippled space laboratory falls rapidly towards the Earth...

We're Losing The Will To Survive (The Skylab Disaster)

Drown

12 Get Down (LIVE REMIX)

Bitmap is a band made from just one man. Luke Barwell is that man.

Releasing a brand new track every month since January 2020 and aiming to continue until, at least the end of 2022. 

Luke is formerly a member of John Peel favourites Salako.

The first two Bitmap albums - Alpha Beta Gamma & Micro / Macro - and the EP - Black Arts in the Town Hall - are available to buy on CD via BandCamp. Follow the link for cut-price joy.

NME said:
How does a modern petunia stand out from the hanging basket? Does he go down the Pavement "writing songs while sleep-walking" approach, sonic terror dentistry or a little bit of "analogue synths go bloop"? Bitmap try all approaches. If Bitmap could change their name to The Beta Band, thousands would hail this as the album that finally confirmed their potential.(8/10)

The Sunday Times Magazine said:
Fitting neatly alongside the classic harmony-drenched summer sound of The Thrills, Bitmap offers an alternative that is equally seasonal. Alpha Beta Gamma is a delight. Basically it's the album we've all been hoping the Beta Band would make. Smart electronic noodling underpins old-school melodic pop that veers from easy listening to weird psychedelic workouts. As with so much frothy pop, there's a darker twist to the lyrics. (Pop CD of the Week - *****)

We're Losing The Will To Survive (The Skylab Disaster)

∆ Bitmap ∆