The instant classic festival is ready once more to live up to its reputation as a tastemaking party at Brockwell Park.

Gizz fans of the world unite! And while we’re at it, let’s gather all the fans of music’s weird and wonderful for the London scene’s annual love-in, Wide Awake. With a lineup that captures the mood of the city’s alt music fans like no other (helped by the fact that it is run by some of the best promoters in town), the festival is always a must for those within reach of Brixton’s Brockewell Park.

The big headline this year is King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. The Australian metal-via-psych-via-jazz-via whatever-else-they-can-pick-up-on-the-way group have been favourites of UK audiences since they first rolled out ‘Head On/Pill’ to the Shacklewell Arms another lifetime ago, and now they come to Britain in full headline band force, a position they lived up to at last year’s End of the Road.

Beyond them, the lineup continues to excite. Two acts returning after making their mark of the festival’s legendary inaugural year are Dry Cleaning and Squid, two of our proudest exports from the new post-post-punk wave that swept Britain over recent years. They are joined by newer adherents and transgressors of the genre, such as Ebbb and The New Eves, while a one-set incarnation of MOTH Club’s incredibly popular Byrne’s Night (Talking Heads covers by supergroups of happening new artists) pays homage to that lineage.

Faux Real also return to the festival, where their Sparks-like brother-brother pop songs and singular choreographed routines won hearts and minds with immediate effect. Deep Tan and Lambrini Girls add to the festival’s punk credentials while Babe Rainbow will provide the perfect Aussie psych come-up ahead of the King Gizz maelstrom.

Already an essential feature of the music calendar for anyone remotely near to Brockwell Park, the festival is a one-stop sample of what the city’s music scene is about, affirming for staunch gig-goers and  vital for those without continual access to the circuit’s venues.