Are You Listening? Reading’s annual multi-venue music festival returns to the Berkshire town this weekend. Breaking More Waves has been a regular attendee to the event; our records show us first visiting in 2013 which appears to have been the first. Since then, except for 2024, we’ve been every year.
Despite being a firmly established event Are You Listening? doesn’t always get the praise or recognition in the media it deserves. Perhaps it’s because the likes of similar but larger multi events such as Great Escape, Dot to Dot and Sound City have a greater corporate involvement and can garner more publicity because of it. Having said that, this backfired for Great Escape last year with its sponsorship from Barclays leading to many artists pulling out as they didn’t want to be associated with an event where the main sponsor and partner had ties to Israeli companies, particularly those involved in the arms industry.
Are You Listening? really does deserve more acclaim than it gets. Not only for its music (a mix of national touring acts and more local Berkshire / Oxfordshire artists), but the way its curated (each venue has a slightly different tone – if you hit up Sub 89 you’ll probably get a good does of sweaty, visceral indie rock (memories of the huge queues to witness Idles there in 2018 are still vivid in the memory) whereas if you choose St Laurence’s Church you’ll probably get something a little more unorthodox – from vocal acapella groups to synth punk to jazz.
Also, between 2013-2023 it’s worth noting that Are You Listening? raised £79,576 for Reading Mencap. Sadly after 10 years Reading Mencap had to take a step back from the partnership, bidding a fond farewell as the post-pandemic fundraising landscape has changed considerably. You can read more about this on Reading Mencap’s website here.
Now to the music. This year’s big hitters at Are You Listening? include the likes of previous Breaking More Waves Ones to Watch Big Special, Coach Party and Album of the Year top 10 band Sprints. However, here are a few selections of artists a little further down the bill who also deserve your attention.
Joshua Idehen
Formerly of Benin City, Joshua Idehen has collaborated with the likes of Kojey Radical, The Comet Is Coming and Sons of Kemet. A poet and a musician, he already has a significant back catalogue, but if you’ve not heard of him before, why not start with the track Mum Does the Washing, Joshua’s explanation of the world the way works, which will both make you laugh and think. Then follow on to a variety of smooth grooves that have found favour on BBC 6 Music.
AK / DK
Drums. Synths. Textures. Rhythms. Motorik. Punk. Psychedelic. Dance. Experimental. These are some of the words that we’ve used in the past to describe AK/ DK, who produced one of our favourite albums of 2017 with Patterns / Harmonics (their 2024 release Strange Loops was also a lot of fun).
Man / Woman / Chainsaw
One of the artists that featured on Breaking More Waves Ones to Watch list for 2025, Man / Woman / Chainsaw have hints of early Black Country New Road with leftfield rock songs that veer wildly from raucous guitars to soaring violins with enough breakdowns and tempo changes to keep you guessing throughout the set.
Ziyad Al-Samman
According the Are You Listening website Ziyad Al-Samman is inspired by hours of listening to Prince, Pulp, Gorillaz and Egyptian singer Amr Diab. That on its own should be enough of a recommendation, but it turns out that after watching his video for his song Ya Habibi, he looks like a lot of fun as well.
Honeyglaze
With two albums under their belt, 3-piece Honeyglaze produce the sort of introspective bedroom indie that has a strong sense of conscious honesty and rawness. They have a certain languid unapologetic charm that impressed us back in 20021 (here), so they are on our list of possibles for Are You Listening 2025.
