ECLECTIC PICKS - 2024

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 9th September 2024: 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/batch540

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.

ENTIRE INBOX: Batch 540

Thank you for having me back so soon, and so unexpectedly.

I was already a third of the way through the entire inbox when I was asked to create the Eclectic Picks playlist for a second week in a row. I love picking music and telling people how much I appreciate them for their creation, and hearing how happy it has made them to be understood as an artist.

To compliment the fine work of everyone at Fresh on the Net, I am working on a project to turn the new music I find into eclectic DJ sets, and play this wonderful sound offline, in the real world. The focus will be on playing underrepresented music through quality sound systems in new-music friendly venues, with displays and links to the artists so that they can be studied, followed, enjoyed, and hopefully contributed to financially by the music-curious public. I love challenges.

I’m also going to have to start using social media in order to promote everyone’s music, and these DJ sets. I don’t want to think about that heinous step right now.

Reach out if you would like to know more, or would like to hear a person like me playing all new music in your ears.

If you like this playlist, you’ll also like my previous ones. You can hear those via my Soundcloud page.

As usual, please share and comment on this work and any music you enjoy. Creating and releasing music to silence is a bit like saying “I love you” for the first time and not being sure if the other person heard what you said over the sound of the band saw, and not being able to look Mrs Keggs in the eye again before you had to change schools for a reason that was never made entirely clear.

I usually write more about each track. This week I am doing someone else’s homework and only have time to write a (shit) haiku for each, though I could write forever. Clearly.

The playlist:

1 J.G.W.Parker – In the Mountains and the Valleys and Nowhere Else

You did dreamy right
Enjoyed this as the sun rose
waking my lover
2 Little Juke – Down The Rabbit Hole

I really like that
Sounding a lot like Thom Yorke
she said with a wow

3 Marble Stars – Wood Pigeons Coo

Man speaks. Impartial,
but still the words bring feeling.
Beats summon the birds

4 Solessence – Corduroy

I don’t have a lounge.
So this must be the soundtrack
of relaxed pretence

5 The Gamels – 02 The Gamels – Bittersweet

Effortless audio.
Despite being so damn cool,
makes my tummy melt

6 boycalledcrow – magic medicine

Stuttering glory
generates sonic landscape
at home to corvids

7 DAVID STANLEY – Don’t You Ever Stop

I’d love to drop this
in a heavy techno set.
Sunglasses at night

8 the march afternoons – if you find please KILL KILL KILL

Your composition
inspires admiration in
those who understand

9 Negative Response – Alienation

strip away human
analyse the raw data
a system you trust

10 pecq – stronger

Perfect party track
with an unholy bassline.
Wish it was longer.

11 Benjamin Mace-Crossley – We Have Ghosts – Red Wall Colliers

Two-person mosh pit
broke out in our studio
Must see in person.

12 The Glitterbombs – LGB (with The TNB)

Making your statement
with passion and energy
motivates others

13 Eeade – Sally the Monster Slayer

eclectic playlist
uncovering your treasure
for all to enjoy

14 The B – Roads – Upper Street

Everyone here
welcomes everyone else,
your music tells me

15 Fluid Armstrong – Mirage

dripping musical honey
onto a midnight ice cream
thats a nice image

16 Graham Graham Beck – A Spatial Oddity

My captured spirit,
calling out from your music.
Looks better on you.

17 Anna Skoyles – Baking Cookies Song

Mad ingredients
mixed together with magic.
Conjured many smiles.

That’s it, I hope you loved it too. Please go out and see music and talk to people and remember that the world on the screen isn’t the actual world.

Will x

Fresh on the Net - Eclectic Picks 540

High Kingdom Pt. 1

Down The Rabbit Hole

Exist

Nina

Portamento

Disorder is taken from Keening's second album - James Francis Diaries.
Preorder available here - https://darkliberationrecords.bandcamp.com/album/james-francis-diaries-2
James Francis was the lead singer of the cult band Strange Ones. He disappeared in 1993 from the island of Losse in Scotland where he was recording his debut album.

In 2022, James’ tapes and diaries were given by James’ parents to the band Keening. Keening had discovered and fallen in love with the Strange Ones' records and learned about James’ disappearance. The original demos themselves, even with digital restoration are unlistenable as James distorted the recordings and overdubbed them with found sounds from the island. Instead of replicating the songs, Keening decided to write their own music inspired by James’ diary, the mystery surrounding his disappearance, his lyrics, and the island of Losse. James’ edited diary is included here for interest and with the permission of his family.

releases January 20, 2024

James Francis Diaries

Disorder

DOPAMINE by Bjørn Felle, out now on AnalogueTrash

Dopamine

The First Train Home

Dancing On Dynamite

There’s a permanent click track in my mind,
The metronome like a clock.
Tick tock Tick tock.
Within the head space.
The grasses grow long in the overground garden.
A simple mow will fill a wonderful smell of freshly cut grass into the metasphere.
Another track, control New, controlling you!
Press record. The subtleties of presumption transpire into a grey triangle.
A click track, bait, got to catch them all.
A catcher in the rye.
Slowly we sigh, expanding air through our mouths.
Clickerty clickerty clickerty clack.
The stop bar stopped so did our track.
We derailed, we failed, we bailed.
CTRL N, CTRL N, CTRL N.
We renewed and sat back and observed for a while.

Where the Wood Pigeons Coo,
Where the Wood Pigeons Coo,
Sat waiting for the news,
Sat waiting for the news,
Soon they can renew,
Soon they can renew,
Sat waiting for the blues.
Sat waiting for some clues.

Badgers stripe, scutterling, connected to ground.
Above the majestic kite, circling.

Where bats wings flap, 
Where bats wings flap,
Sonar waves.
Bouncing bouncing.
Soon we can renew.

In the forest; pine scent tickles nose hair,
Bare feet in bracken.

Baths of magnesium sulphate, floating, floating.
Stagnant Meres, Where wood pigeons coo.
Floating floating.
Ducks bath, floating floating
In stagnant Meres
Floating floating.

There’s a permanent click track in my mind,
The metronome like a clock.
Tick tock Tick tock.
Within the head space.
The grasses grow long in the overground garden.
A simple mow will fill a wonderful smell of freshly cut grass into the metasphere
Another track….
In stagnant meres.
In stagnant meres.
Stagnant meres.

Where Wood Pigeons Coo

Side of the Moon

Hoping to spread a feeling of positivity and inspiration June Holland and friend/fellow artists Jack Ronan release their first collaboration "Happy Now".

Ready to boost your mood and bring a smile to your face? “Happy Now” is the perfect feel-good pop song you’ve been searching for. With vibrant melodies and a touch of jazzy flair, this song is about appreciating the present whilst staying hopeful for the future. The heartfelt lyrics urge us not to give up during tough times, encouraging us to look forward to the good things in life that may be just around the corner...

Happy Now

Happy Now (feat. Jack Ronan)

Full album on Bandcamp:

https://jgwparker.bandcamp.com/album/trying-learning-to-care-and-not-to-care

Trying, Learning To Care and Not To Care

In the Mountains and the Valleys and Nowhere Else

A fresh take on the electronic genre from a new outfit based in Tampere, Finland. An album spanning turn of the millenium influenced electro with styles ranging from jungle, French house and triphop to jazz and psychedelic blues.

Bittersweet

Corduroy

Instrumental track, taken from my next GGB album, 'IT'S NICE TO BE NICHE' (release date: 13th Oct. 2024). A Spatial Oddity is one of those tunes that came about accidentally - just improvising on the piano, & then adding other keyboards & rhythmic parts. The title, apart from being a sly nod to David Bowie, is because there's an extra beat in there, which shouldn't have been (but somehow, it just works). There are various styles melded together, but then that's just me!

A Spatial Oddity

Any Trip

Keyboard-player, 'visual performer', singer/writer of songs that explore the peculiarities of the ordinary. Alternative Pop with a quirky & Surreal sense of humour...& a few stage props! 
Motto: Two's company, three's an audience (if I'm lucky!).