Any artist is welcome to send us a track via freshonthenet.co.uk anytime between Monday lunchtime and Wednesday evening (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 13th October 2025: 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/batch585

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 (and remixes of tracks) that have been previously submitted, and tracks from banned artists will also be removed.

Christmas songs and the like are also not eligible for the Listening Post, although we will collect these into a playlist that will be published on 24 December.

Full Inbox: Batch 585

A song for the people that help us get through the mental health struggles in life.

My People

For a long time I have been looked down on 
A lot.
Not only have I been told how wrong I am, but also how I should look and be if I wanted other people's recognition,
Even though I often showed myself from my best side, it was never good enough. 
Not good enough when it came to friendships that led to me often being betrayed and burned, but also when it came to love, which is essentially there so you can feel loved and cared for, but instead I had an ex who needed to strangle me and thought no one would come and miss me.
Even though I have been through so much,
that is one of the things that is so cool about having music, is that you can express yourself.
If you have been through a lot of bad things, you may well need a loving boost.
Amazing as hell is the song for you who need to be reminded that you are amazing the way you are. 
The song is out on April 25 and can be presaved

https://lnkd.in/daPAv2Qg


Amazing As Hell

SYK - Yaw Bruno

Rhumba Club today releases his new album HONCHO, a forty–minute, through composed queer odyssey that resists neat narratives and commercial polish.
“I wanted HONCHO to reflect an authentic queer experience: messy, uncertain, sometimes ravenous, other times despairing,” Rhumba Club explains. “It charts a journey many queer people will recognise: escape, naivety, reality checks, learning the codes, and emerging tougher, though perhaps with something lost along the way. This is my queer odyssey, not the polished narrative pop culture often prefers, but unvarnished.”

Heavily influenced by Patrick Cowley and the vintage aesthetics of gay magazines, HONCHO situates itself proudly within a queer lineage while refusing to flatten into two dimensions. Its unsettling synths, candid lyrics, and refusal to package queerness into something “digestible” mark the true formation of Rhumba Club’s artistic identity. “For years, I’ve struggled to fit into a commercial box: not gay enough, too queer, too emotional, too retro,” he reflects. “Where I’ve landed is simple: the gatekeepers are wrong. That very combination of emotionality and queer musical tropes is what makes Rhumba Club unique.”  
Rhumba Club is proof that with artistic conviction, drive, and talent, it’s possible to carve a non-traditional path in the music industry. Having caught the attention of both Patrick Wolf — who features on the lead single ANIMAL/LOVER — and acclaimed Czech filmmaker David Ondříček, who includes “Talk Me Into It” and Falle himself in the climactic scenes of his upcoming film, Rhumba Club continues to attract some of the most distinctive and compelling creatives — a testament to the vibrant community he’s building around himself.

HONCHO is as much a critique as it is a celebration. It reckons with app-based yearning, dubious massages, relentless body counts, and depression, while never losing sight of the joy and fun threaded through queer culture. Co-produced and mixed by Mikko Gordon, the album closes with a guest appearance from Patrick Wolf, underscoring its proud embrace of queer community and lineage.
Dedicated to Patrick Cowley, Patrick Wolf, and Benjamin Canares, HONCHO is best experienced in one sitting, uninterrupted, from first note to last. “Do it the old-fashioned way,” Rhumba Club says. “Put on your best headphones, grab a beverage, and go full HONCHO.”

Baby, Don't Say You Love Me (feat. Juno Francis)

"Home Ain’t on the Map"is not just an instrumental piece it is a meditation on the very idea of what "home"means.
In a world where borders, belonging, and roots are constantly shifting, Max Marginal expresses through two guitars a universal truth: *home is not always a place you can point to on a map.
The rhythm guitar embodies the road, the journey, the passage of time  steady, persistent, always moving forward.
The melodic guitar, on the other hand, represents "the inner voice" searching, questioning, sometimes colliding with silence. Together, they weave a dialogue without words, like two souls wandering in search of a place that is not physical but "emotional and spiritual".
Through this composition, Max Marginal explores:
he **loneliness** of those who cannot find their place,
the **displacement** of those who live far from their homeland,
but also the **freedom** of building a home out of fleeting moments, emotions, and invisible bonds.
"Home Ain’t on the Map" questions the very essence of exile: what if home is not a destination, but a feeling? What if true refuge lies not in the land beneath our feet, but in "the music itself "?
By removing words, Max Marginal allows the listener to own the journey. Each person can project their memories, wanderings, and hopes into the vibrating strings. It is both an escape and a return — an invitation to get lost in order to be found.

Home Ain’t on the Map

I wanna be the man

Go Figure

Tidal Wave is about that flood of emotion when you let yourself feel fully, even if it crashes in all at once. The temporary drowning that can lead to clarity.
This project came together as I let go, as I let the wave take me where it needed to. I was trying to be honest, learning not to hide from what hurts.
Written, produced & mixed entirely by me. 

Drive Me Home

Rumour

After two #1 singles on the German Alternative Chart (DAC) with "House of Cards" and "Endless Night", Howlett has pushed into darker terrain with Eggshell. Melodically, it has an anthemic, haunting quality, while the beats give it an almost industrial edge. Daniel Myer (Liebknecht, Architect, Covenant etc.) has also left an audible footprint with his production and mixing. 

"Eggshell can be seen as a companion-piece to Empathy Test's Demons", says Howlett, "and inhabits a similar realm, atmospherically. Penned around the same time, it's one of the few songs I've written that's told from someone else's perspective - it's the response of the silent partner in Demons."

If that's not enough to capture the imagination of Empathy Test's legion of loyal fans, the fact that this is perhaps the closest Howlett has come compositionally to Empathy Test, will no doubt cement Howlett's solo work as a viable alternative in the absence of anything new from the aforementioned duo.

Eggshell already has some buzz around it, having been performed live several times by Howlett at his solo shows earlier in 2025, but this September to December he is also performing it, along with the follow-up Ghosts of the Tsunami (releasing on Halloween, 31st October) with Empathy Test on their biggest European tour to date.

At a lengthy, but not unwarranted run-time, of 5+ minutes, the release includes a more concise "radio edit" to appeal to those with shorter attention spans. However, to appreciate the full scale of this epic track, the original version is recommended.


Eggshell (Radio Edit)

Little King is September's release in our attempt to release a track a month for a year. The sun's gone in and the leaves are turning. Is this reflected in the music - probably not, but it has some other early Autumnal feelings going on. Sit back, get your Autumn knitwear on, stick a log on the fire and enjoy. FREE DOWNLOAD from Bandcamp (follow 'Buy' Link)

Little King

Give the robot your face (Radio edit)

Black Metal Jacuzzi

Riding Black Metal

WHERE THE ROSES GROW

Ceiling

And it goes like 
Moncler puffer the storm right 
Too soon to tell me the murky weather 
Yeah, ten toes down in the cold right?
My tribulations are worth a stretcher 
Feel the rage mist my love leak when I bleed 
Not a bitch around that’s worth blending my seed 
I know my desires are burning like rolling sheets 
Crouchin’ through fire the devil see when I peak 

I can smell the rain coming 
My eyes have yet to lie to me 
I stepped foot in the labyrinth 
And didn’t know it 
Oblivious been living life like a kid again 
Seen many men wait by the door for deaths arrival 
And when it comes to opponents there’s not a rival 
I done pushed buttons
I’m done waiting for yall
I’m birthed problem that nobody can solve 
The pen 6’11 shoot threes like Mark Gasol 
Any of these rappers a threat? 
No not at all
List of many goats in pocket
But it’s none of ya’ll 

I stroll the car
Through red lights I’m out in SHAW
the thickest broads pop out they Na Na Na’s
Still I gotta walk through the fire 
Insanity and my pride 
To hold your hand in the scene with one of y’all
I wouldn’t touch grass or bleed for one of y’all 

Yeah I’m only here to examine the root and cause 
The truth hurts until you let it dissolve 
The new dawn i see your methods 
Survival your image not authentic you’ll brush my shoulders with eyes closed 
Light the torch 
As I lead the way for the lost souls 
I cracked the code 
these rappers all live in fear
I never fold these ten toes how I steer
I switch gears 
In the midst of it all reload the clip
And extend peace ‘fore I tear them apart 
Gracefully I let you live how could you not 
Embrace for me 
Your bitch tempting I keep her at eye candy level
The self respect that she don’t got
I trigger passive moments 
My endurance a sore spot
I figured more cash boost adrenaline 
Hit of bliss like her medicine 
The word “NO” somethin’ like doorstops
Come gamble with your life go against me a sure shot
So far in the horizon heatwaves make your soul clot 
And burn swiftly 
New Jay’s new day soles crispy 
Black jean jacket the signature of the callous mystery 
New York fitted my birth place been vandalized 
Asinine credit scores lower than birth rates 
How can I live proper my earth quakes 
No way to find peace ‘less a transaction wear you 
Like North Face 
Ride along with me for your fate 
My Birds Eye view of the sapphire sphere
Erodes fake over time

The heavens predicted I would shine
At your door like the bill collector to gimme mine
Respect the hustle got many flavors  
A columbine 
Check the style the homie really one of a kind
Solitude focus I disappear just to blossom 
I know dead people that’s breathing they souls
In coffins 
Why the fuck would I stick around 
And sink with ya? 
The questions they never ask themselves
Unfollow women I recruited 
They bad for health 
She only here when I’m alone and can’t stand myself 
Beside the point is where I’ve been 
But too blind to help 
I gotta see to all my wounds 
‘Fore I’m distributing first aids
First place what the aim is 
But I know better illustrations presented here 
By the famous is Criss Cross
The right trigger R2 I’m pissed off
The painters here just been tracing man 
Please don’t believe the lies that you saw 
Blood sweat and tears they’ll try and convince ya’ll 
That they the ones who got ball 
And I ain’t nicer at all.....

JOURNEY

R2 (Prod. by Aris Erth)

Spotify

HIDDEN LEVEL

Highrise

Full Circle

Instrumental piano and clarinet, crossing over classical/film music. Beautiful, passionate and emotional.

Surrender To Love

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.

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Full Inbox: Batch 585

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