City Sounds: London

City Lights

In many ways, London is a city of contrasts and contradictions. Despite changes in licensing laws, many bars and pubs still shut at 11pm, and you’ll be lucky to get a table at a restaurant much after 10.30pm. Yet the capital is home to a club and live music scene that is unrivalled across Europe: whether it be a Colombian salsa night at a neighbourhood South London restaurant (La Bodeguita) or a midweek dubstep party (Boilerroom). While London cannot compete with a city like Berlin where cheap rents and empty buildings create a vibrant counterculture, there is still a healthy and fast-moving cultural underground to explore.

Out on the Dancefloor

In cities such as Madrid or Rome the pavements throb until the early hours. But beyond the very centre of London (where attempts at a café society are somewhat spoiled by the refuse trucks and screeching taxis) you’ll be lucky to pick up more than a cold pizza or dubious kebab after midnight. The best bet is to work up an appetite for breakfast at one of our notorious ‘greasy spoon’ cafes by dancing the night away instead. Because nowhere has such a variety of ways to indulge your inner night owl than London. You can buzz to African electro with Secousse, check out cumbia in a Dalston warehouse with Sofrito or learn to jazz dance in a Soho basement with Jazzcotech. Following the 80s boom at clubs like Dingwalls, London jazz is still buzzing with the rise of young collectives like F-IRE and Loop.

Elizabeth Shepherd Trio – Four (featuring Jazzcotech dancers)

Although dance music does not have the commercial sway it had in the 1990s with Acid House, it is possibly going through its most fruitful stage creatively. The many differing styles are often hard to keep up with though, as UK Garage morphs into Grime before blending into Dubstep, fusing with House to become UK Funky. Others simply call it bass music. Are you keeping up? There are some great releases coming out on labels like Swamp 81 (named after the police operation that led to the Brixton riots of 1981) and Hyperdub run by DJ and producer Steve Goodman aka Kode 9. This small label released possibly the most influential electronic record of the last 10 years, in Burial’s LP Untrue, a pivotal release of ambient Dubstep that echoes through the music of everyone from The xx to James Blake.

Kode 9 and Spaceape

Pirate radio stations like Rinse FM (now a legal station) have a big part to play in our fast-moving urban/street music, but it’s the incredibly vibrant club scene where the creativity really flourishes. Unlike many European capital cities it’s not just the weekend when London clubs come to life. Some of the best nights out can be found midweek, like Dubstep mecca FWD when the hen parties and City workers are tucked up in bed and where music makers have more space to dance (or nod their heads knowingly) and exchange ideas.

London’s promoters have always been an innovative bunch and in many ways they have had to be with restrictions and barriers seemingly around every corner. Like in New York where real estate prices and noise complaints from newly built condos has largely turned Manhattan into a playground for stockbrokers and Paris Hilton clones, the nightlife scene in London has largely moved outside of the centre to the more affordable outskirts. The exception to that is the legendary Soho ska party, Gaz’s Rockin Blues, London's longest running one-nighter club.

East Goes South

Back in the mid 1990s, artists and other creative industries were drawn to the cheap rents and expansive loft spaces around Old Street on the cusp of East London. Hip bars, clubs (Plastic People) and live music venues (Cargo) followed. Soon there were more Vietnamese restaurants than nail salons, and the area’s mix of genuinely innovative venues and nicotine-stained local pubs had changed forever. While it’s true Friday nights around Old Street can now resemble the drunken streets of Magaluf in Majorca, there are still little corners left. However, the arts scene has largely moved up the Kingsland Road to Dalston, where collectives like Passing Clouds provide an alternative to the commercialisation a mile or so down the road, with regular African music nights just one of the treats on offer. Likewise once cultural deserts like Elephant & Castle in South London are seeing new spaces opening up such as Corsica Studios and the salsa club in the railway arch next door, Distriandina – a favourite with local Colombians, who have dubbed the neighbourhood “Elephant & Cali”. Might the stranglehold of East London finally be losing its grip? Let’s hope so as a city needs to pulsate from all corners.

Passing Clouds

A World Capital of Diversity

London is the most diverse of all European cities with its ever-changing immigrant population, where Polish supermarkets and Ghanaian restaurants sit side by side with fish & chip shops and Chinese takeaways. It’s a mix that has shaped our music and nightlife. Back in the 1930s, flamboyant Jamaican and Chinese immigrants such as Edgar Manning and Brilliant Chang were blamed for turning London’s flapper girls into drugged up maniacs. The story is captured brilliantly in Marek Kohn’s book Dope Girls, an essential read for anyone who wants to go to the roots of London counterculture, as well as exploring drug and race paranoia. This same volatile and creative mix continued to set the night alight in the 50s and 60s when venues like The Flamingo became infamous dens of iniquity where dancers of all shades partied deep into the night. The fact that August’s once volatile Notting Hill Carnival has turned into one of the most peaceful and multicultural events of its type is testament to how London’s citizens have largely come to live and learn off each other. If one country has influenced English culture more than any other it is of course Jamaica. From the mods in the 60s in their rude boy suits to dub’s continued influence on dance music, Jamaica is at the heart of the capital’s soundtrack, thanks to long established sound systems like Channel One and progressive Dubstep collectives like Digital Mystikz.

Channel One at Notting Hill Carnival

Ever since Edmundo Ros’ arrival from Caracas in the 1950s to set the night alight at the Coconut Grove on Regent Street, London has reverberated to the sound of Latin music. In the late 70s a huge exodus from Colombia fleeing the civil war arrived to give an audience to travelling bands like Grupo Niche and and Willie Colón. It was this demand that led to the salsa explosion of the 80s and London has never looked back. At the same time an increasing Brazilian population ensures bars such as Guanabara and Favela Chic are packed every night of the week with dancers moving to everything from forro and samba to baile funk.

While London is not known for its hot weather, the summer months offer a vast amount of free outside entertainment, often surprisingly graced with sunny skies. It’s not just the Notting Hill Carnival where London’s multiculturalism is celebrated in riotous colour. The Carnaval Del Pueblo goes from strength to strength celebrating Latin culture.

Record Stores

Another outdoor activity is shopping and London has markets to match those of Paris, whether it’s Camden in the north of town or Portobello in West London. And here is where some of the best record shops are to be found like Honest Jon’s and Intoxica. Although record shops around Soho are closing at an alarming rate there are still survivors on and around Berwick Street, like the hip but friendly Sounds of the Universe and dance store Phonica. One of the many second hand Record & Tape Exchange stores also resides on Berwick Street and it’s worth going in just to see watch the moody staff behind the counter. And then of course there are the reggae stores like Dub Vendor in Clapham Junction and the granddaddy of them all Peckings, possibly the friendliest record store in town and well worth the trip out west (Askew Road, Shepherd’s Bush).

Eat the City

If all this shopping is making you hungry then not to worry, there’s a dizzying range of food on offer across the capital. While Thai restaurants once predominated, it’s now Vietnamese and Korean eateries that are springing up everywhere you look. If it’s Middle Eastern food you’re after then head to Edgware Road (or over to Mayfair for superb Lebanese canteen Le Comptoir). Persian food is also popular in London and you shouldn’t miss the cluster of homely cafes around Kensington. While there are lots of Moroccan restaurants around, it’s harder to find good home-cooked food from other corners of Africa. Which makes the travelling food stall Spinach and Agushi even more mouth-watering. And we could always do with more Jamaican restaurants like the long-running Mango Room in Camden and Bamboulas in Brixton.

So that’s just a taste of what to do and what not to do in London Town. Hopefully a few of our tips will help you make the best of this vibrant city.

Andy Thomas

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