Rave On: London's best club nights

Fabric’s gone but the party continues. Dance yourself dizzy at these new club nights and secret DJ sets, says Phoebe Luckhurst
Get down, get on up: London has club nights galore
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London's nightlife is a mercurial proposition. There is no such thing as a prescribed evening; there is no certainty that the small, subterranean cell on Kingsland Road you were in on Saturday — hair slick with sweat, your arms imprinted with stamps — is still there this weekend.

Often these venues are Rooms of Requirement: the result of very specific moods and moments on one specific evening. One night you want something riotous and ridiculous, like Lady Gaga’s surprise gig at MOTH Club last Friday; next week you’ll want something different, and you’ll be south of the river. London will deliver.

Of course there is a loud chorus rightfully dismayed by the closure of major clubs — notably Plastic People, Fabric and Passing Clouds — and who argue that our clubs are being persecuted by legislation and villainous developers intent on sterilising the city. The closures are definitely worrying, and they mark a death of sorts.

In happier news, though, Mayor Sadiq Khan has pledged to protect London clubbing culture — including employing a “Night Mayor” — and optimists suggest tentatively that the Night Tube might recharge the industry. The party’s not over yet.

Furthermore, while insiders are worried, their scene is resilient. New options won’t replace Fabric but they’re honouring its legacy, and new areas are reanimating certain parts of London. This is how we’re going out now.

All night party: Sink the Pink in Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club

Cult club nights

The best modern club nights inspire devotion: an impassioned collection of regulars who will book tickets as soon as the dates are announced, who’ll follow a dedicated Facebook group to ensure they are notified of any updates, and who share events on their own walls to recruit new blood. It’s a little like the slavish constancy people once paid to their favourite band or member of One Direction.

Hot tickets include Sink the Pink, an exuberant collective of drag queens who run one of London’s premier LGBT nights. It started as a relatively regular spot at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club — with a glitter stand where guests could smear sparkles across their sweaty brows — and now it also runs bigger nights (sort of like postmodern balls) at locations like the Troxy.

Last year’s New Year’s Eve party in one of the nondescript warehouses in Hackney Wick was a rowdy, kaleidoscopic, all-night affair — many attendees were still picking confetti out of their hair on January 8. Its next throwdown is on Saturday at Troxy and the theme is Under the Sea.

Hard Cock Life is a cheeky “homo hip hop” night that colonises the basement of the Ace Hotel once a month. The playlist (a mash-up of 1990s, 2000s and recent R&B and hip hop) and it draws a crowd of white-hot young things — tickets always sell out ahead of time. Buy now for next Saturday. It’s a cast-iron guarantee of an excellent night out.

“I think London’s club scene is still pretty healthy, though definitely at risk,” reflects Josh Cole, the night’s founder and one of its DJs. “With Hard Cock Life I’ve always been surprised by how much appetite there is for something new and exciting. Something different. And how much people just want to have fun.”

Late night London: where to stay up all night to get lucky in London

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Deadly Rhythm has been seducing south-east London’s caners for almost a decade: it draws guests including Four Tet, Floating Points and Joy Orbison to play alongside its estimable resident DJs. It normally pops up in Rye Wax studios and the Bussey Building, and delivers explosive one-off blow-outs: this year’s post-Carnival party at Bussey Building was reportedly wild.

South London Soul Train also pops up at the Bussey Building on the first and third Saturday of each month. Unless you’re a student at Camberwell College of Arts you’ll likely be the oldest person there but the music is hypnotic.

And Your Mum’s House, a weekly spot at the Nest, successfully executes a house party vibe off the back of its chaotic playlist of old-school R&B and hip hop and £2.50 drinks.

Out on the razzle: Oval Space

Watch this space

“London’s nightlife scene is extremely healthy in output and quality,” says Tom Ranger, music programmer at Oval Space in Bethnal Green, one of a new generation of agile venues that is up for a bit of everything (29-32 The Oval, E2). “The diversity and choice on offer for each aspect of nightlife culture, be it art, comedy, dance, drink, food, music or poetry and spoken word is pretty insane. Any given night of the week you can sample any of the aforementioned aspects to a very high standard.”

It’s certainly true of Oval Space — one evening there’ll be an art show, the next a club night, the day we speak Ranger is setting up for an orchestral performance.

It’s also true of The Pickle Factory, which is opposite Oval Space and operated by the same team. It’s a former medical supplies storage unit that is now a small “party space”.

Legendary DJ Gilles Peterson name-checked it as his favourite London venue: its dimensions mean it’s good for acoustic sets or club nights, and it is already acquiring a reputation as a space for all-nighters (13-14 The Oval, E2). American label Proibitio will play its first UK showcase there at the end of the month, joined by New Yorker Huerco S.

Corsica Studios, in the railway arches at Elephant and Castle, comprises two parts: a small studio and a live music and bar area. It hosts club nights as well as gigs (4/5 Elephant Road, SE17).

Vogue Fabrics is primarily a club but is also — fittingly — hosting a London Fashion Week presentation next week, and the launch of Sister magazine later in the month (66 Stoke Newington Road, N16).

Ranger also name-checks other new, flexi-venues including Echoes, Omeara and The Bridge — “Most of which are under 300 capacity which is exactly what London has needed for a good few years.”

Star turn: Lady Gaga’s surprise gig at MOTH Club last Friday

Redrawing the map

London continues to grasp outwards. Deptford has been ascendant for years: locals mouth about Bunker (46 Deptford Broadway, SE8) and Little Nan’s Bar (The Basement at The Golden Anchor, 16 Evelina Rd, SE15)

Meanwhile, “it’s nice to see that Camden is trying to re-establish itself as a music hub after quite a few years in the doldrums,” Ranger observes. Indeed, the whole area had threatened to become one big market dispensing tat to Spanish teenagers in crop tops but venues including the Camden Assembly are giving it credibility again (49 Chalk Farm Road, NW1).

Another insider references Walthamstow, where DJs play at Wildcard Brewery on an industrial estate - Pete Fowler is there on October 1 (Unit 7, Ravenswood estate, E17), and there’s a scene bubbling in Leyton.

Overall, the offerings present an effervescent mix of established clubs and nomadic nights.

“We have promoters offering us the choice,” says Ranger. “One weekend you’re in your standard music venue, next weekend you’re in a park or road-closure, next you’re off to your local church. It’s fantastic and keeps things fresh. On the flip-side, having residencies and in-house dedicated nights to promote is a great thing where you’re able to build and grow something. On the whole, it’s not all doom and gloom.”

Seize the night, then no one else can seize it from you.

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