Our moderators listened to every track we were sent this week and have picked their favourites for your listening pleasure this weekend:

LISTENING POST: Batch 543

Still Hurts

Better Days Are Coming

Fire Escape (Clean)

Actress (Clean)

This song is written in a classic singer-songwriter style and shares honest reflections on life today.  Between the Worlds is a contemplative track from the perspective of someone looking back, assessing what’s been but also looking forwards, trying to make sense of what’s still to come.

Between the Worlds was written in June 2024 while I was on tour around Germany, and recorded in collaboration with musician and producer, Tobias Thiele, at his studio, Blue Lizard Studio, in Funkenhagen (Germany), in July 2024.

Between the Worlds

Perfect Piece of Person I'm Made For

Fine Print

Dorothea Tanning

Kryptonite

Politician

Elephant releases self-titled album on Southern Summer

Album follows the self-managed artist’s acclaim from BBC introducing
Recorded in a friend’s barn in Lymington, Hampshire over summer 2012, Alex Hall (who goes under the pseudonym Elephant), left his job as a garden nursery worker to embark on recording a collection of songs he had unearthed over a frustrating twelve month period.

“I moved backed home from London, and I was crashing between sofas, living in a trailor and moving between jobs - all over the place you could say. I thought it was a good time to take some needed time out and reassess. Making this album was like sweeping the junk out of the closet - it felt totally right and natural to be doing it”

Armed with a laptop and a modest array of all sorts of instruments from banjos to Bodhrans (either collected over the years, or borrowed from friends), Hall moved into a disused cabin in the rural surroundings of the New Forest and over a two month period impressively performed, engineered and mastered everything heard on the album.
Nearing the end of the process, he sent tracks to BBC Introducing, and host Melitta Dennitt played a track within a week of Hall uploading it. As well as this, a local label (Southern Summer) said they would assist in physical release of the album - which is due to be released on 1st March.

The album is very much a bold statement of the DIY ethos, and it was with total intent Hall wanted to record it independently, devoid of studios, engineers and session musicians. It takes influence from 90‘s indie, anti-folk, fuzz rock, and electronic music. Southern Summer lauded it as ‘Genuinely inspired contemporary take on 60’s pop’.
“As you may expect - It’s a lonely album, but it’s certainly not depressing. it’s got all the broad themes, and takes influence from a strange sort of spectrum - but people will find heart and humour a well as some of the heavier stuff. I don’t think it’s particular easy for any artist to make ‘honest’ music. I just hope people recognise the honest element of it - and feel it’s represented in a way that deviates from the norm - and I hope they can understand and enjoy it in that way”

Digital downloaded of the album are released via MadeFromClay and are now available through Hall’s artist website (www.theelephantwebsite.com) and can be bought for £4.99. Physical release via Southern Summer is scheduled for 1st March and can be p re-ordered from the same website.

Alec Sala

Pterodactyl - [Bootleg 2012]

Neon Light

Pterodactyl

Pocket Of My Heart

Your Silence is an introspective and reflective song which stems from a scientifically proven fact that the brain responds to being ignored in the same way as it does to physical pain. Your Silence captures both the agony and ferocity one encounters in this situation, as well as the elements of undisputable beauty experienced alongside silence itself. 

Made in collaboration with hugely talented Alex Hall, praised by DJs, press and critics for his DIY approach to his 'British Pop' sound, and heavyweight mix engineer Jay Pocknell (whose past associates include Alt-J and Marika Hackman).

Your Silence

Fresh On The Net is a music blog hosted by Tom Robinson and Team Freshnet, offering independent artists an open door and a level playing field for their music. Our inbox is open at http://freshonthenet.co.uk every Monday to Thursday morning - if you share a track with us there it will be heard by every member of our moderation team.

IMPORTANT: 
Only send ONE track, and make sure the dropbox says "OPEN".  Sorry, but tracks sent while the dropbox is closed - or shared drectly with this Soundcloud account - will not get heard.

DIY Big Pop Productions from a room somewhere - 50°N 0.1°W
http://www.alexhallmusic.co.uk

http://www.facebook.com/alexhallmusic

Kryptonite

CITY LIMITS

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