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 16 March: 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/batch440

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 440

Enjoy The Day (single version)

KEEF's latest single 'DAY IN DAY OUT' is based on the monotony of daily life when chained to the repetitive cycle of work and trying to pay the bills. It comes from personal experience of feeling trapped and having the desire to escape the vicious cycle. All of KEEF's songs and lyrics come from their experiences of life and what they experience on a daily basis. They are passionate about their music and lyrics and want to express themselves to a wider audience. Interlaced through their rhythm is the northern mersey beat sound they were all influenced by and exposed to from an early age.

Day In Day Out

'a song about finding the courage to leave.'

Follow Will on:
Spotify: https://sptfy.com/willkillen
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/willkillenm...
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/willkillenmusic

Lyrics:
I’ve made up my mind
Darling, I’m not coming back
It’s about time
We let it all go

All I wanted was
Honestly, honestly
And that’s what I told you from the start

We had some high hopes
We had some high hopes
So what have you done, dear, what have you done?
We’re back to where we started from now
When we had some high hopes

I know there are words left unsaid
But I’m too tired of trying, of trying
So I’ll keep them all up in my head, love
What’s the point in fighting now?

We had high hopes but
Honesty’s what I need
So why did you keep me in the dark?

We had some high hopes
We had some high hopes
So what have you done, dear, what have you done?
We’re back to where we started from now
When we had some high hopes

We had a great few months
And I’m gonna miss you now you’re gone
I’m on my way back home now
And this is the hardest thing I’ve done
We had a great few months
And I’m gonna miss you now you’re gone
I’m on my way back home now
And this is the hardest thing I’ve done

We had some high hopes
We had some high hopes
So what have you done, dear, what have you done?
We’re back to where we started from now
When we had some high hopes

High Hopes

I'm With You

'Congo Solar' is the A-side of Grandbaby's debut 7" release, coming out on April 1st (though it's no joke) on Seattle's 'Wax Thematique' label. It's available to pre-order now from www.waxthematique.com.

Written, performed, produced and recorded in an underground WWII bunker ("The Crunch") in the English countryside, Jason Baldock’s “Grandbaby” project isn’t as cuddly as it’s cheeky name would suggest. In fact, it’s a take no prisoners, uncompromising approach to mostly-instrumental songcraft. Grandbaby's debut 7" bursts with feverish energy, formidable synth lines, crunchy/catchy guitars and an unearthly brilliance for drum break expertise most session musicians would kill for.

Grandbaby - Congo Solar

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

Regrets (feat Tuvaband), radio version

i'm in free fall
i feel it all
my heart's pounding
my head's spinning
seems like floating
i'm in free fall
i've lost control
trying to stop my
trying to keep my
mind from racing

closer, closer
to the ground
faster, faster
can't look down
everything's a blur
all around
i'm moving at the speed of sound

i just wanna fall
hit the floor
without ever crashing
i just wanna fall
hit the floor
without ever bruising
without ever aching

but did I jump
or did I trip
did you push me
did you make me
or did I slip

closer, closer
to the ground
faster, faster
can't look down
everything's a blur
all around
i'm moving at the speed of sound

i just wanna fall
hit the floor
without ever crashing
i just wanna fall
hit the floor
without ever bruising
without ever aching

i wanna fall
i just wanna fall

Jump

Watching Wax

Mirage

Good Bones

Foreva

Mother Natures Scorn

The second release from my forthcoming EP Welcome To Loveland.

Summer was ending and the nights were getting shorter whilst writing this. The juxtaposed nature of Desolation compared to the rest of my forthcoming EP - Welcome To Loveland, intrigued me. The EP is laced with upbeat, get your feet moving, songs. Desolation adds a hint of despair to ground it in reality. The concept of a theme parks protruding happiness - whats behind the facade?

The show must go on!

All music by Lucifers Beard
Produced by Chris Barnes
Mastered by Ed Ripley at Raretone Studios
Artwork by Rob Perry

Desolation

Firestations – Many White Horses

'Many White Horses' is a collection of sea-soaked acoustic songs and instrumentals, interwoven with field recordings and lyrics drawn from the immediate surroundings of a sailing expedition, all brought together with warm, textured production. It marks Mike Cranny’s first solo endeavour, playing a variety of instruments and self-producing, albeit one enriched by Laura Copsey’s contributions on flugelhorn, flute and vocals.

The album was conceived and largely written at the beginning of August 2024 on a sailing yacht (Sail Britain’s “Merlin”) in the Inner Hebrides. This was the location for a week-long art residency with seven fellow artist-explorers all keen to capture something of the essence of being at sea and viewing the land from the sea. The voyage, through high winds and waves, took in the mysterious Isle of Rum and the coastline around Arisaig, before Mike and Laura continued the journey for a further week; travelling around the Ardnamurchan peninsula, across the Isles of Mull and Ulva to end up off-grid on the remote Isle of Gometra. 

While the music, with its focus on quietly hypnotic, hushed acoustic instrumentation, may at first appear something of a departure from the last five-piece band Firestations album ‘Thick Terrain’, it remains closely related and recognisable by Mike’s song writing style. It also occupies a similar space to the ‘Sunken Versions’ – quieter and slower songs (featuring on the ‘Automatic Tendencies’ EP series in particular) that focus on the more meditative, stripped back side of the band.

The title track ‘Many White Horses’ was the first song to be written, making use of an aging sea-warped boat guitar that Mike discovered could only be played in an open tuning, with a capo higher up the fret board. Mike says: “The limitations of this guitar proved to be a gateway to other songs – the chord progressions and melodies had to be simple to avoid tuning nightmares, and where I might have ordinarily decided that a song was too straightforward, on the boat I didn’t have a choice but to persevere with simple song ideas. It turns out that limitations can be liberating”. The first single from the album ‘A Weight Starts To Lift’ was written a bit later and shows Mike exploring the possibilities of the open tuning “maybe the trickiest fingerpicking I’ve ever attempted”. 

The communal living conditions on the boat and the camaraderie developed through the everyday routine, and in other artist’s processes, made for a fertile environment. Laura, as expedition leader, provided a series of creative prompts, shaped by archipelago poetics. Moments and provocations that filtered into lyrics and rhythms included a collaboration with a square meter of earth, seeking out an audience on a micro scale, and reading laminated sheets of poetry in the sea. Field recordings and found instruments also give the compositions a strong sense of place and carry the listener across rough seas and onto remote islands.



Biography

Firestations (Lost Map Records) span genres from shoegaze to alt-pop and harmony-driven psychedelia. Their second album, The Year Dot, released in 2018, was followed by sonic collage album Dream Home in 2020 and the Automatic Tendencies EP project in 2020-21. The latter took the form of three EPs over a six-month period, each including alternative “sunken” versions by the band as well as covers and remixes of the band’s tracks by other artists. Thick Terrain, released in 2023, saw Firestations return to album format with ten tracks ranging from hypnotic sci-fi landscapes to addictive dream-pop jangles, exploring ideas around identity, conflict, progress and sanity. Bandmembers are Mike Cranny, Laura Copsey, Martin Thompson (aka Bit Cloudy), Tom Hargreaves and Neil Walsh.

Firestations - A Weight Starts To Lift

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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KEEF are a psychedelic indie rock band formed in a small industrial town, northwest, England.  Their music and lyrics are very much influenced by their working class upbringing. The feeling of alienation, isolation and discontent are echoed within the music and lyrics.  KEEF’s influences range from 60’s psychedelia to indie punk.

Day In Day Out

KEEF

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