Each week, there are 10 great acts in our playlist, all with a connection to Reading or Wokingham. As always, we have a wide variety of musical styles, but we think they’re all worth a listen, and we hope you find something new to enjoy as well as maybe getting out to experience the thrill of live music.
1. Leoni Jane Kennedy – Different Kind of Woman –
Two weeks in a row, the lead track is by a Leoni! Last week Leonie Jakobi, this week, a Different Kind of Woman (see what we did there?), Leoni Jane Kennedy, recently voted no. 4 in Prog Magazine’s Best New Artist category. LKJ is based in London, but she’s appeared on both stages at Wokingham Festival, as well as at the Facebar, and we also saw her just down the M3 at the 1865 in Southampton, and we look forward to seeing her live again before too long. This is her latest single, from her forthcoming album of self-penned compositions, and in it Leoni examines what sort of woman she wants to be. https://www.facebook.com/LJKmusic
2. secret rivals – The Last of My Letters –
Secret Rivals are a four-piece indie pop/punk band from Oxford, and we caught their set at Are You Listening last year, and they also played at the Rising Sun Arts Centre in November for Club Velocity. This is their latest single, and we love this bouncy track, where the music is at odds with the lyrics looking back at how things have turned out and wondering what happens next. https://www.facebook.com/secretrivals
3. AlphaLine – Release –
Talking of awards, as we were with Leoni Jane Kennedy, Berkshire-based AlphaLine recently won Best Indie Rock Act at the Radio Wigwam awards, and they’re playing just down the road at Thames Side Brewery in Staines on Saturday 22nd February, supporting Spriggan Mist (which is handy, as AlphaLine’s drummer, the multi-talented Aaron Cilia, is also sound engineer for the Spriggans). This track is from their Electromagnetic album, released last year. https://www.facebook.com/AlphaLineBand
4. Leonie Jakobi – Don’t Mind Me (While I Give You Up) –
Regular readers may remember we featured a track by Leonie Jakobi after seeing her in a support slot on one of our road trips back in August. We like to keep an eye on talent we discover like that, and were delighted to hear this, her latest single, released just last month, a joyful celebration of relief felt at the end of a bad relationship, with the singer able to move on to better things. https://www.facebook.com/leoniejaprofil
5. TRASHCAT – I KNOW YOU LOVE ME –
Someone who we’ve been following for even longer is the talented Charlie Stokes from Bracknell. We first saw her in Helta Skelta in 2019, then in 2023 and 2024 we featured tracks from Pinewall. This is her latest release, under the Trashcat name, a great piece of pop-punk with a warning to the other party in the relationship that things might be about to get difficult! https://
www.instagram.com/trashcatmusic_/
6. The Mezz – Sleeping in Cars –
This looks to be the final single from Oxford-based The Mezz; if so, they’re going out on a high, with an appropriately nostalgic song about their childhood, and how the things you want to change as you grow up turn out to be the things you miss looking back. https:// www.facebook.com/themezzuk
7. The Outliers – Hardest Goodbye –
Bracknell-based The Outliers are exploring a slightly more mellow vibe than Red Tape Resistance, which two of the members also belong to, and this is a great debut track. We look forward to more new music from them, as well as from Red Tape Resistance which is also a continuing project. https://www.instagram.com/theoutliers_band/
8. Ruby Dawn – Alice Come Home –
This track is taken from the second album from Carola Baer’s Ruby Dawn, “Blood on Water”, which has been recently released. This is a great example of progressive rock, and the band launched the album to a packed house at The Butler. https://www.rubydawn.co.uk/
9. Funke and the Two Tone Baby – Can’t Stop The Music –
Despite the act’s name, Dan Turnbull is the only person you’ll see onstage at a Funke and the Two Tone Baby gig, but he makes music that you wouldn’t
believe possible from a solo performer, with acoustic guitar, keys, drum machine and loop pedals (of which he’s a master). His show at the Facebar for Club Velocity was excellent, hear for yourself with this track from his recent live album. https://www.facebook.com/funkeandthetwotonebaby
10. Glitch – Patience –
Just announced as the band to open this year’s Wokingham Festival (date for your diaries – August Bank Holiday weekend), Glitch are a new young band from Maidenhead, and have just released this, their debut single. Their aim is to restore catchy pop and rock songs to mainstream radio, and we think they’re going in the right direction with this track! https://glitchmusic.uk/
You can listen to all the songs featured in our Spotify playlist at https://bit.ly/rawsoundstoday
