London Clubs: October

London Clubs: October

22 September, 2008
by: Lowri

Doom, gloom and Apocalypse! The end of the summer is nigh. Due to Government cutbacks, the light at the end of the tunnel has been extinguished until further notice. Today is the Autumnal Equinox – which means that it's the first day to be shorter than the night. Depressing eh?

The nights are closing in, The End is closing. Festival season is well and truly over. But hold your horses there just for a second. It's autumn – one of the most overlooked seasons for partying but traditionally one of the greatest. Take a butchers at clubland's autumn schedule and you'll soon see that good things are in store for London clubbers. It's Halloween – clearly the only time where skanking around looking hideous and vaguely insane is actually encouraged. The Festival season being over means that all the artists who've been fannying around the fields are free to come and do their bit in the cities great nightclubs – a far more civilized way to kick your heels and one which doesn't require any time off (provided you reign yourself in by Sunday night). And the White Isle of lunacy has finally shut up shop, handing the baton back to London as Europe's best clubbing destination and freeing up the seminal Ibiza residents for to play at nights such as this.

There has been a shake up in clubland, but where one departs another inevitably rears its debauched, dilated head. The gap left by The End will be felt acutely, but what better timing for the opening of glorious looking superclub Matter? Future line-ups look extravagantly good: Justice, Deadmau5 Live, Simian Mobile Disco...

And what about the new spruced up and shaken-down version of Bar Rumba? Their formerly tired schedule has been superseded by a quiveringly fresh bout of programming which includes monthly 'funky' night 'Beyond' from Rinse FM (the people who brought you FWD at Plastic People - the night which started the dubstep snowball rolling in earnest). Added to which there's a monthly collaboration between Shane Watcha's brain eating Zombies and Playtime Records - with future line-ups including the fucking great Mike Monday and batty bassist herself Hannah Holland. Plus there's Andy Bird and Greg Wilson's new techno-disco monthly Automatica, which promises to showcase artists from across the electronic sphere from Detroit to Berlin via Manchester. First up this month it's Roland Appel (Sonar Kollektiv) and Maurice Fulton (Tirk Records). Phew.

This new, forward thinking scheduling at Bar Rumba really is good news – new musical Director James Manero says: 'Bar Rumba is rethinking the idea of the superclub – with The Cross, The Key, Canvas and Turnmills all gone, and the other superclubs just not what they used to be - there is a gap in the market for a smaller, more intimate venue, with a soundsystem and a DJ line-up that wouldn't be out of place in the world's finest, biggest clubs'. Damn right.

And how could we forget the 10th anniversairy of techno overlord Richie Hawtin's label Minus? All the usual suspects are beaming in from Planet Minus and thy're bringing plenty of technology. This is probably the techno event of the year and will sell out so get on the case.

So, to put it simply, there is plenty to get your teeth into this autumn – without  dwelling too much on the twattish economy (anyone else think a cereal called Credit Crunch might work?), the encroaching Tory party (shudder) or the lack of sunlight. Quite frankly, clubbing hasn't looked this good in a long, long time. If the price hikes in Dolmio and broccoli mean that you're subsisting on Heinz alone, remember that club entry is one of the only things which hasn't gone through the roof. And the best way to beat recession is to shore up confidence in the economy (aka spend more money) – something that can be easily achieved by making the most of your city's glorious nightclubs. It's your duty as a Londoner.

Lowri