One of my favourite amorous stories came from a friend of a friend who had been in the pub. Tipsy, on the tube home, he was chatting to someone about his job as an operator of tower cranes, the cranes they use to build skyscrapers. Intrigued she said show me. He had the keys for the building site so he took her up to the control booth of the crane. What happened next, well, I like to imagine that scene in Amélie where she looks out at the city of Paris and imagines every orgasm happening at that moment, but swapped. I don’t find the thought of fucking in a crane particularly erotic, but I do love the combination of sex with a view.

Feeling joyful whilst surveying the city, I wanted to start the new year with a sense of cheer here. What is happening in London in respects to clubs and music broadly feels positive coming into 2026. Genuine options abound, across the board musically, run by decent people with solid intentions. From established larger spaces, to places committed to deeper, alternative experiences, here’s a brief round up of things in my purview, a guide for my own sense of optimism and a reminder of places I would like to lose myself in based upon friend’s reports. Please tell me what I’m missing under the line.

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In no particular order Fold, MOT, Ormside, fabric, Number 90, Club Cheek, Earth, Village Underground, Om, Peckham Palais, The Divine, Moth Club, Carpet Shop, Cafe Oto, The Cause, Dalston Superstore and Phonox are all doing their own particular things with integrity and relative consistency. There are increasing numbers of off location spaces that are in use. Alongside them there are more parties than there have been (say a decade ago) that operate amongst their communities and not through the usual online channels, not going to list them here but they have been my starting points for thinking about how to approach throwing a party in the city for the last two years. Pearls was the first iteration of that, last years ARPO at The Distillery the second. I will think about something else on that front probably in the second half of this year as I think in a healthy ecosystem it is important to balance the established spaces with nights where there are a hundred more variables/unknowns.

There are spaces such as the Lion and Lamb, Spanners, The Glove That Fits, The Greyhound and The Eagle that fit the pub/bar club model and I suspect given how many clubs have opened in the last year or so (four from the first list) we will also see more of these types of spaces open in the next year or two. There are particular parties in particular spaces that have something special - free movements, Adonis, Trough, 160 Unity spring to mind here.

Unfortunately the tenacious growth in the capital has been mirrored by decline snowballing elsewhere in the country, particularly in the north. Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield have all suffered terrible rates of closure and there remain few shoots emerging. Ghosts abound - Freedom Mills, Wire, Hope Works - victims of the pandemic, the recession and tedious patterns of sobriety. The only thing I will say about that is as capitalism has forced personal optimization and corporate health/beauty culture into every aspect of our existences, of course it eventually came for our fun and our hangovers. Going out for two days does remain, in this age, a solid fuck you to all that. Anyway Manchester seems well enough, the cluttered geography of the north allowing it to swallow up audiences that are not served by spaces closer to home. Bristol ticks along.

Whether all these shifts are the edge of something or the middle its difficult to say. Many of the measures Sadiq Khan has introduced to help places open, and protect them once they get there, are only really just kicking in. Labour have added the power to overturn licensing refusals from local councils, which should in theory make it easier for applications in the coming years. It honestly feels like the story of things being endlessly ground down in the music industry is turning though, and we can hope that the change in this city begins to ripple beyond. One of the things that helps are stories with a little lustre, the encouragement for people to try. After years of negative ones I really hope we see a shift from these brutal notices to something with a little more sparkle this year.