It’s been nearly 500 days since London’s nightclubs last ushered revellers out their doors. Now, they’ve finally been given the green light to reopen – but the choice of events can be a little bit overwhelming. From the dirtiest depths of the UK underground to high-flying disco classics, we’ve handpicked some genuinely very good club nights coming up this summer that you can book tickets for now.
2020 was supposed to be Sherelle’s year.
The jungle, drum ’n’ bass and footwork DJ, from Walthamstow had shot to fame in 2019. She had built a cult fan base on Reprezent radio, secured a viral London Boiler Room set (click here to see her subjecting a chaotic crowd to banger after banger) and by last January was playing four gigs a week without a break. It seemed like industry domination was on the cards. But, as the world knows, things got a bit weird for the nightlife sector last March.
What does a super-hyped DJ do when their career is accelerating faster than 160bpm but all the clubs are shut? In the case of 27-year-old Sherelle, slowing down was not an option. ‘Clubs might have closed, but my listening habits got even harder,’ she says. ‘Harder, faster, and rougher.’ Sherelle landed a year-long residency for BBC Radio 1 and launched an initiative to improve the representation of queer people and people of colour in the dance music scene. She became a spokesperson for the nightlife industry, speaking out about its lack of government support during the pandemic. ‘The government needs to step in and give out care packages,’ she said to Mixmag back in October.
Then there’s the debut EP, ‘160 Down the A406’, that came out this month. It’s a two-track record with celestial vocals and delicate textural rhythms, overlaying the high-speed rolling drums that have become so synonymous with her sets. ‘It’s a scary thing moving into a production side of things and not being a DJ,’ Sherelle says. ‘Making music is a lot more personal than doing a mix.’
Early parties
The story of how Sherelle became a DJ goes a bit like this: the first time she went clubbing in London was at Fabric on her eighteenth birthday. ‘I think it was Casper [C] playing,’ she says. ‘I’d previously only been to small clubs in Essex, where I went to school. When I finally went to Fabric, I was like: this is fucking sick, I want to go clubbing all the time. I was so taken aback about how big the club space was, it felt like it went on for years.’
Sherelle set out to carve a career where clubbing could become her day job. She interned at Shazam and later landed a gig videoing electronic music events for Mixmag. ‘I was just basically roaming around filming all of these amazing DJ streams, watching people play in front of me,’ she says. The more she watched, the more she learned. Soon she started DJing her own shows in small basement venues, often with nothing but the vibrations of the sound system to keep her company.
That’s probably why she’s such a reactive performer when she’s playing in intimate spaces: if you’ve ever experienced the energy of one of Sherelle’s sets, you’ll know that it’s impossible to leave without being soaked in sweat. Take a look at clips of her gigs for Keep Hush Live and Boiler Room Festival if you’re not convinced. Now, as things open up, she’s hoping to revive these energy levels – and her first booking back, at Standon Calling this weekend, is set to be something special.
‘It's absolutely going to go off!’ she says, explaining that she’s equally terrified and ecstatic to be in front of a crowd after a year of lonely radio shows.
The return of clubs
Sherelle shares the sort of nervous excitement that many of us are feeling about the return to the dancefloor: a lot of questions remain unanswered, and anxieties about health and safety inevitably run high. Sherelle stresses that she’ll be testing herself before and after each party and calls for handwashing in club toilets to be made mandatory. It’s not the only change she wants to see as London’s nightlife reopens: after a year in hibernation, this could be an opportunity to reimagine the club scene from the ground up.
‘With everything that's happened recently, especially with Black Lives Matter, it just means that we should really be making more of an effort to make sure that clubbing is a lot more inclusive and safer for more people,’ she says. ‘It should start with line-up bookings. Club nights will be much more interesting if you’ve got different opinions and perspectives of people playing.’
This chimes with the work she’s doing with Beautiful, a label and initiative focusing on queer and black dance musicians. ‘The label will be putting out new and old artists,’ she says, explaining that she’s hoping to release the first compilation in November. ‘We are also going to run workshops teaching the history of electronic music and the fact that it is black originated, as well as practical sessions teaching people how to DJ and produce.’
Sherelle’s long-term goal is to raise enough money to buy clubs in London and Berlin, to further the legacies of black and queer people in dance music. ‘I would like to address ownership and make sure there’s a tangible space to build community,’ she says. ‘A lot of the time, some of the people that own the clubs are not necessarily reflective of the people dancing there.’
Dickheads aren’t welcome
It’s no secret that there’s an ongoing threat of closure to London’s grassroots music venues: in the past decade, nearly 60 percent of the capital’s LGBTQ+ venues closed down. ‘It’s amazing playing these big festivals and super clubs,’ says Sherelle. ‘But being in a small room with 200 people rammed in, playing the music that I'm playing, is just a whole different fucking vibe.’ She encourages clubbers to support smaller venues in the return to events, even if it means forking out a couple of extra quid for a ticket or checking out a lesser-known artist for the first time.
Once we’ve bought the ticket, done the test and probably stood in the rain in some piss-smelling Hackney backstreet for half an hour to get in, what about when we finally do step inside the club? ‘When we go back, I want us to actually interact with new people,’ says Sherelle. ‘It’s a great time to make new friends, meet different types of people and have different experiences – it can really change your outlook on life.’
With regard to meeting new people, Sherelle has one exception. In the spirit of a 2021 summer of love, dancefloors should be exclusively reserved for spreading joy, warmth, and undisputed acceptance, so ‘Ban all bastards when we go back,’ she says. ‘Racists, homophobes, transphobes, people who think they can sexually assault or harass others. Just ban them all. If people are going to be dickheads, especially after 18 months of being locked down, they're not welcome.’
You can listen to and purchase Sherelle’s EP, ‘160 Down the A406’, from Bandcamp.