ambient

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 8th July. 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/batch537

If a track you submitted does not appear in this list, it’s probably because another of your tracks appeared in our Fresh Faves 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 537

I chose my favourites from the Fresh On The Net Full Inbox (batch 537).
You can find that here:
https://on.soundcloud.com/nVy1PYW651hpURwv5

Will we agree when The Listening Post shortlist is announced in a couple of days?

FRESH ON THE NET 537 - MY FAVS

A FEW WORDS FROM WILL FARR

Oh no, It’s me again.

I hope you’ve enjoyed a fairly quiet few weeks of political upheaval, bloodthirsty crime mysteries, and uninspiring kickmen. 

A strange time, accompanied by a strange inbox. 

This week’s playlist is more electronic and spooky than I would usually curate, but that’s purely down to what I enjoyed from what was submitted to Fresh on the Net this week.

In creating this playlist, I heard tracks that hadn’t been mastered for playback at all and were barely audible, and one with thirty seconds of silence at the end. I quite like scruffy production values, but it would be really cool if artists could listen to their tracks all the way through before sharing them with the world.

If those rogue tracks were at the bottom of the pile, these creamy oddities were splat atop:

1 Charlie Gray – Before It Starts
Picture a brooding teen drama montage set in the early 90s: decisions must be made, nothing will be the same, everything is equally possible and impossible. All gorgeous with perfect levels of reverb and exquisite composition. I know they’re not the words, but I’ve been singing “You’re the tits” to my partner, to my exclusive amusement.

2 Minimums – Sun Moon And Talia Remix Of Prologue
I think this track summed up my mood this week. An ambient piece simultaneously sounding both rich and desolate, lost yet hopeful. Sounded marvelous in the studio and went straight into my playlist with no nagging.

3 Julia Dales – Bite It
My favourite track from the inbox this week. Oddly compelling combination of simple strutting peacock vocal delivery and insane crescendo electronic mini breakdowns. The upload has been tagged as ‘cocky’ on Soundcloud, and I concur.

4 ARPRAXIS – Next Track … Be There
Arpraxis is on a roll. I picked Monte’s a couple of weeks ago, and here he is again with the aptly titled Next Track… Check out his work. So much effort goes into each production, it makes me feel positively lazy- I’d have strung out the first four bars for five minutes. I keep hearing new sections and ideas with every listen.

5 Peter McDonnell – 7 Sequences
A pleasing selection of synth melodies layered over one another with a pleasing pulsing beat. I have no idea how to produce a track like this with a run time of 3.12 seconds – that takes some discipline.

6 Lost Signal – The Orange Salamander
Lots of things that I like squoozled into one track by an expert producer. Part dramatic synth electro soundscape, part delirium inducing classic techno gear change.

7 Particle Drift – Valence
This deserves to have more written about it, but excellent techno doesn’t really benefit from words any more than an excellent experience benefits from a selfie.

8 The Fantom Man – INTRUSION
Helpfully described as “chill out featuring jazz guitar with electronic nuances…” which saves me a job. I like all the sounds, and I like not being able to predict which order they will come in next.

9 Spectre Horsemen Pale With Dust – The Stars Gaze Back
Ah the sort of track the Eclectic Picks Playlist is made for: mad past versus future experimental ambient drone with chanting and throat singing.

10 Reid Anderson – We Would Have Noticed The Moon
Phew, this is the one non electronic music track that I liked from this week’s inbox. Really cool to hear new music in this style, and thoroughly deserving of inclusion and applause. Produced with ethereal echoey quality as though it had just started playing on a long abandoned gramophone in an empty warehouse – a sign of survivors or another red herring?

I feel like this is some of my least eclectic picking, but it does form a surprisingly coherent playlist.

I’ll leave you now, and think about what I have done.



Fresh on the Net - Eclectic Picks: Batch 537

FOTN: ECLECTIC PICKS - 2024

7 Sequences

Wrapping Cellophane
Les Manteez 
Album Magical Seeds
MAY I Records

Magical Seeds

Wrapping Cellophane

A nod to the DJs promoting their club night. Bring back the  radio DJ 😎

Next Track … Be There

High Kingdom Pt. 1

Space conquest, once a child’s dream or a billionaire’s whim, is now an absolute imperative.
Humanity, desperate to find a new habitable planet, sends pioneers to exoplanets.
First Exploration is the diary of one of these explorers: CCTemple , sent on a mission to the planet CC Zone N7, with no possibility of return. There he discovers a fragile and luxuriant flora.


✦ STREAM / DOWNLOAD ✦
https://Baco.lnk.to/FirstExploration

✦ CCTEMPLE ✦
https://www.instagram.com/cctemplemusic/

✦ CREDITS ✦
First Exploration Album by CCTemple 
Released on @iot-records  06.14.2024
Composed by CCTemple
Mix : Thomas Terrien / Master : Yoann Lê
© 2023 I.O.T Records
Published by CYLID
[IOT89]

HomeSeq

This song is about seeing things differently after a period of time has passed and then trying to accept and appreciate 'what is' rather than 'what isn't'. 
It started with a riff I really liked playing and grew from there. It's had a few different versions of lyrics and sections but I eventually got it in an order that was as concise as I could get it, while still fitting in all the things I wanted to include, like the (to my mind) Fleetwood Mac ending. I wrote a string part that we recorded with a string quartet, which I hadn't anticipated doing when we started making this song, but now I can't imagine it without them. I love all the glissando's!

New Eyes

Punch Drunk - Honey Motel

We find ourselves submerged beneath a derelict central Berlin building occupied by artists and anarchists. It is flooded with heavy electronic noise, smoke, damp stale air, and unfettered indifference.

The individual creating the noise is not visible, all we see are the loudspeakers behind a barrier. The performer becomes utterly irrelevant, and I decide the sound might as well be coming from a swollen tomato. 

As the noise reaches its peak, bouncing off the dirty brick basement walls, I feel compelled to shout back in response. A German lady asks if I am part of the performance, and I tell her that we all are.

The Madness Begins

Good Day

Exploration No. 1

Purchase on Bandcamp

Exploration Number 1

Birds

CRYSTAL SHARDS 4 (feat. The Fantom Man)

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

Bite It

A rumination on a decade-old connection and where they are now.

LYRICS:
We drive around in your car again
What a way to spend an afternoon for two

We pass the storefronts and the memories
Laminated glass keeps us from what we had
But these shops aren't selling memories
They're merely dreams that we will never get to share

And you could say it's not the best time
But why can't we play pretend?
And what's on the line?
All of my values
As I point out the line about your scars in my song

I had a dream we fell in love again
And when I wake I feel it slip away
Reading back our chats like poetry
With cheap Shiraz I'll check the read receipt and drink

And you could say it's not the best time
But why can't we play pretend?
And what's on the line?
All of my values
As I point out the line about your scars in my song

I felt a spark so I got in your car and your engine took us home
Where you kept your wedding vows so your God won't strike you down
Has it been ten years?
I haven't a clue
It gets hazy when I drink
And now you've spent a lifetime with him
And I'm aching on my own

Check the CD, check the CD, oh
Check the CD, check the CD, oh
Check the CD, check the CD, oh
Check the CD, check the CD, oh
Check the CD, check the CD, oh
Check the CD, check the CD, oh

We drive around in your car again

Speed Trap

The Sounding of Days

Woioi are a blend of cosmic, psych and global grooves. Based in Manchester, they draw inspiration from a wide range of music from around the world, combining a blend of genres to create a unique sound.


Their debut EP ‘gumreader’ is out on Friday 26th July. The first single from it, Black Villa, came out on the 21st of June. It's a mix of old school hip hop beats, funk and pysch.

Black Villa

Prologue - Sun Moon And Talia Remix
Original track by Minimums
Remixed by Sun Moon And Talia
Mastered by Minimums

Sun Moon And Talia Remix Of Prologue

New single from Charlie Gray
'You the test, your the test, before it starts'

Before It Starts

Luv With U

Minimums create & produce electronic/ambient/soundtrack music.  Public tracks, secret identity.