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. I See Orange – Mental Rot –
We featured Swindon-based I See Orange about a year ago, after we saw them just down the road at The Acoustic Couch in Bracknell, supporting another band in the current playlist, AlphaLine. This, their latest single, is another fine showcase for their mix of grunge, classic rock and pop influences. It opens, if my schoolboy Spanish is to be trusted, with a whispered instruction to come here, and then launches into an infectious riff backed by powerful bass and drums, on top of which come the vocals with some great harmonies. https://linkr.bio/ISEEORANGE
2. His Latest Flame – America Blue –
Something a bit different this week. As you may have seen in last week’s paper, Professor Trish Reid, Head of the School of Arts and Communication Design at the University of Reading, is a former member of the 1980s Glasgow band His Latest Flame, which features in the documentary film Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands which is being shown at 1pm on March 6 at the Whiteknights campus as part of Women’s History Month, followed by a Q&A with Professor Reid . America Blue is fresh today as it was when they recorded it nearly 40 years ago, with four
part harmonies, and the lyrics are perhaps as pertinent now as they were back then. More about the events can be found at reading.ac.uk/events
3. The Straights – Blue Pocket –
A new discovery, The Straights visited The Face Bar last week from the Portsmouth area, and headlined a show they also promoted, and they’ve been busy on the road, supporting the likes of the Buzzcocks, Inspiral Carpets and The Bluetones. This track is their most recent single, released last year, and is a good example of their distinctive sound. https://www.facebook.com/
thestraightsukofficial
4. Leoni Jane Kennedy – Different Kind of Woman –
Leoni Jane Kennedy was recently voted no. 4 in Prog Magazine’s Best New Artist category and 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
5. 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
6. 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 this 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
7. Leonie Jakobi – Don’t Mind Me (While I Give You Up) –
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
8. 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_/
9. 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
10. 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/
You can listen to all the songs featured in our Spotify playlist at https://bit.ly/rawsoundstoday
