Donegalese poet Matthew Sweeney blends humour and frivolity with an ominous mood in his verse. He follows certain Irish and German literary customs (he has spent a lot time in Germany) of straying beyond the borders of Realism to a self-termed "Alternative Realism". Sweeney weaves these Kafkaesque tales where droll but often eerie events occur: an attempted seduction takes place during a violent street riot, an orgy occurs during a funeral, a grandfather gleefully terrifies his grandson to tears with tales of UFOs, a hanging man farcically narrates the aftermath of his suicide. The clarity and simplicity with which these poems are narrated create disquieting and hallucinatory images as vividly as if on screen. One of contemporary poetry's most original purveyors, Sweeney appears at the London Review Bookshop to read from and discuss his new collection of poems, Black Moon, touted as Sweeney's darkest work yet.

NB: literary flashers take note of both the Southbank Centre's London Literature Festival (runs till 12/07) and Wole Soyinka's lecture (07/07, 7:30pm) at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

With the advent of freestyle hip-hop culture in the '70s and '80s came the beatbox: a unique and fascinating sound that has sunk roots into the music scene from hip-hop to punk rock, from jazz to pop to cock rock. Anyone who has ever seen Rahzel live on stage, or watched that guy from Police Academy do his thing, knows that the larynx, throat and soft palette together form an instrument capable of incredible, and incredibly weird, things. Each beatboxer brings their own anatomical variations and breathing techniques into the mix, and what started as improv back up to freestyle rhyming has, in recent years, become a far more wide-reaching musical entity. So how does it work? Where does the sound come from? Can anybody do it? Here's your chance to find out. The demo by Shlomo and by Edinburgh's Maad Skillz alone will be worth the trip, but the science behind the beatbox is the purpose for this interactive workshop. Discover live on a big screen how the inside of a beatboxer's instrument works, learn about the linguistic roots of the sounds and breathing techniques beatboxers use, or just have a go yourself after watching the masters.

NB: the event is free but places must be booked by calling 020.7942.4040 or emailing tickets@danacentre.org.uk. This event is part of part of Sing London (29/06 till 08/07).

Music We'd Like To Hear is the name of a short concert series and hopefully it will achieve just that -- involving no agendas of accessibility, marketability or self promotion. Three composers -- John Lely, Tim Parkinson and Markus Trunk -- are putting together three concerts of music they'd like to hear and would rarely get the chance to otherwise. Past MWLTH concerts have tended to present what is going on now in contemporary composition, and often showcase works that don't make it outside the boundaries of their native countries, such as the work of Edition Wandelweiser -- represented in the first concert (in person) by Michael Pisaro (05/07). Forgotten gems by more established composers are also featured, such as Robert Schumann's Romanzen & Balladen performed alongside Christopher Fox and Alvin Lucier by the outstanding EXAUDI choir in the second concert (12/07). The series ends with Parkinson playing the piano music of a number of lesser known composers, including Jurg Frey, whose precise and gorgeous Trio featured in last year's series, and the British renegade Chris Newman (19/07). Even if you haven't heard of any of the composers featured it should certainly be an education and quite possibly music you'd like to hear too.

NB: Music We'd Like to Hear runs for three nights on 05/07, 12/07 and 19/07.

The Royal Court, since its formation 51 years ago, remains one of the major venues for new writing in the UK. So if you want to get a taste of what is going on in contemporary British drama and to look out for the new Mark Ravenhill or Sarah Kane, this is probably the place to be. Rough Cuts is a two week season of experimental work in progress at the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, the smaller of two Court stages. In total there are six small scale productions, grouped in double bill evenings and two readings. Playwrights will include Leo Butler, Sean Foley, Laura Wade, Alecky Blythe, DC Jackson, NF Simpson, April de Angelis and a diverse and promising mix of new and established names. We definitely recommend Airbag (04/07), Clint Dyer -- a collaboration between Butler and Nigerian choreographer Anthony Odey -- and The Girlfriend Experience (05/07 to 07/07) by Blythe -- one of the most established verbatim theatre practitioners in the UK. Check it out for yourself; you can't go wrong with a £7.50 ticket for a double bill and, you never know, there is always the possibility of discovering a new John Osborne.

NB: runs till 14/07.

Calling yourself a student could only be officially legitimised if you had a poster of Stanley Kubrick's fear masterpiece The Shining, a film that not only put Jack Nicholson's maniacal grin on the map but also spawned enough quotable lines to bore/enliven a whole kitchen at a house party. Based on a story by Stephen King -- who originally insisted on Jon Voight for the main part -- and directed in typically fastidious fashion by Kubrick, the story follows the unravelling of a man who loses his mind and then terrorises a hotel in such a deranged way that your sense of suspense feels continuously maxed out. Kubrick apparently made the cast watch Eraserhead on repeat to get them in the frame of mind he required and as a result it's probably the best horror film of modern times. A terrifying must see FREE event.

NB: this special open-air screening celebrates the donation of the Stanley Kubrick Archive to University of the Arts London. Also of note this week is the release of Bruno Dumont's Flanders and a new print of Roger Corman's camp horror-comedy The Raven, which screens at the ICA from 08/07 till 11/07.

Given the meeting of minds that is Mouse On Mars and Mark E Smith with Von Sudenfed, it's no surprise that their new album Tromatic Reflexxions has received such favourable press that it's verging on over hype. It should be interesting therefore to see how the Von Sudenfed sound translates to the live stage this Friday at Wall of Sound's monthly Fabric residency, especially given Smith's infamous live reputation. As usual there's plenty more to keep you entertained, with a headline DJ set from Belgian disco electro stalwarts The Glimmers (check their excellent remixes of new DFA signing Shocking Pinks) plus Alan Braxe and Riton. Kitsune junkies will delight at the line-up in room two with Guns N Bombs, Yuksek and MIT among the live acts and a slew of DJs, including Headman, Filthy Dukes and Tramp throwing down the oh-so-now selection of filthy rock and electro. There is also the added bonus of in-demand director Saam Farahmand providing visual entertainment throughout the night. The Lock Tavern's ASBO leave Camden for the night and take over room three, with residents Alvin C and Riotous Rockers being joined by Jagz Kooner and cheeky scamps the Infadels.

Angels In America is a bold critical statement on American society in the run-up to the Millennium. Tony Kushner's epic about Aids, politics, race, love and haunting ghosts of historical guilt is made up of two parts, The Millennium Approaches and Perestroika. In total, seven hours of pure theatrical magic. And if you think, "how am I going to make it", don't worry: you will ask for more when it is finished. This Headlong Theatre co-production with Lyric Hammersmith and Citizens Theatre Glasgow is the first major revival in the UK since the National Theatre premiere in 1992. It's a great success, simply an unforgettable, spectacular and remarkable theatrical experience with a rock-solid cast and precise direction. Daniel Kramer gets from his actors astonishing performances using the very essence of theatrical craft, making his audience laugh, cry and think about the ways we love, hate, hurt and suffer in the modern world.

NB: runs till 22/07.

The highly acclaimed and versatile Philippe Decoufle is back in town with his latest production, Sombrero. He received worldwide recognition in 1992 after his spectacular show at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Albertville and has been creating magical shows ever since. Immersing himself easily into theatre, dance, circus and film, in the '80s he even shot music clips for Fine Young Cannibals and New Order. His work is very much influenced by the teachings of American choreographer Alwin Nikolais. He mixes mime, dance and circus with the finest of what technology has to offer and produces enchanting and poetic worlds that can only leave you gasping for more. Sombrero is based on writings by Claude Ponti and the music is by Brian Eno. At the tender age of 40+ Decoufle performs in his own show and plays with images, lights and shadows using the "heat" of the sun as the central theme. The performance will leave you suspended, wondering how he manages to mix so many artistic influences while keeping it light, funny, entertaining and moving. If you are not yet an aficionado of his work, you will be...

NB: Sombrero runs from 04/07 till 08/07. Other dance events of note this week are Matthew Bourne's The Car Man, also at Sadler's Wells (10/07 till 05/08), and the Mark Morris Dance Group performing Mozart Dances at the Barbican (04/07 till 07/07).

It's an East End sound-clash of the titans this weekend as two clubbing institutions go head to head somewhere away from the prying eyes of normal society. First up we have Mulletover, renowned for their underground techno/house parties held everywhere but normal club spaces in warehouses, forests and the like. Meeting them head on are the equally well regarded ISSST, who have been doing some serious damage the last few months with a series of properly messed up warehouse parties which have featured the likes of Black Strobe, Klaxons and Simian Mobile Disco. This weekend's most notable guests are Miss Kittin collaborator The Hacker, playing live, and Innervisions' Stefan "Sleepy Hollow" Goldmann, but there's quality throughout with residents Kevin Griffiths, Bobby M and Geddes just as worth catching.

The Vaudevillian website promoting the Art Car Boot Fair does its job pretty well -- if you haven't yet managed to attend one of curator sister-duo Ashton & Hayward's events you'll be left wondering what the hell else kept you so busy. Once again, Brick Lane is the location and Vauxhall Motors the major sponsor of the event, providing vehicles for the likes of outlandish American sculptor/performer Sarah Baker and the UK's best-loved pop artist Peter Blake to customise. While this hardly counts as your average boot fair, what with the promise of a striptease by burlesque act The Teasemaids, hob-nobbing with art royalty and roller skating up and down the top deck of the now sadly defunct Routemaster bus, there will be some art "booty" on offer from the back of a few "trunks". Designed to appeal both to public imagination and budget the prices begin at a very modest £2. It's probably best to take direction from the surviving tenet of car-boot culture, "the early bird catches the worm", as last year Sarah Lucas and partner Olivier Garbay sold out of £20 homemade mugs after the first hour of trading. Quite what the profit margins will be at close of business on the Central Satanic Martins Artistic Sacrifice Stall, though, is anyone's guess.

NB: for more art fun and debauchery make sure you check out the special screening of Luminous Procuress at Tate Modern (6 - 10pm). Fancy dress is highly encouraged and a reception follows the screening with a DJ set by Jonjo. Admission to over 18s only!

Tonight is one of five nights in the A Month Of Sundays season at Corsica Studios that turns its two spaces over to a cross-section of London's avant-garde sound artists, musicians and performance poets. The evening consists of a number of Resonance FM regulars who have opened up their radio programmes to the live event, including audience interaction, and who will be broadcasting from the stage. Performance artist Bob and Roberta Smith's Apathy Band will sit alongside the dizzying Ambrosia Rasputin whose smart, pun-laden poems are growled out in a fine Scots style. Add to that Jonny Trunk (the Original Sound Track show), Composite Group, Angharad Davis and Phil Durrant, and Andy Cox and Lance Martins, and the evening grows in craziness. Finish that off with the special guest, musician, writer and curator David Toop and it looks like a very full, talent heavy, informal and unique evening. Very Resonance.

Few people have the ability to inspire like Ornette Coleman. On record it's hard not to get swept along in the agile whirlwind of melody and harmony, where change is constant and the group dynamic electric. In concert it's infinitely more intense. If you've heard his latest Pulitzer Prize winning album you'll have some idea of what to expect, as essentially it will be the same line-up. However, the record is only one instance, a snapshot of a master musician and his group for whom every performance has a different story to uncover. In addition to this, throughout a career in which he has taken improvisation to another dimension, you get the impression that some of the most intense and uncategorisable conversations occur when Coleman's son plays drums. Ever since The Empty Foxhole emerged (with a 10-year-old Denardo playing drums) he's appeared in various line-ups, but until now it's just felt like snapshots. In this grouping and on stage, they simply stretch out as if the music, intensified by family bonds, is informed by a kind of telepathy.

NB: for jazz fans make sure you catch the Cecil Taylor Quartet along with Anthony Braxton also at the Royal Festival Hall (08/07, 7:30pm).

A French language film, much in the same elusive and dramatic genre as Michael Haneke's Cache, Flanders speaks of the timelessness of sex, violence and madness, and of the prevalence of chaos and discord within the human heart. A morose film split between scenes of profound violence and of rural youth in France, Flanders draws parallels between the life at war and the war at home, and suggests that an inventive cruelty is a necessary tool in the struggle to survive. Acclaimed director Bruno Dumont chose non-actors to play the characters featured in the film, and the realism they create is often uncomfortable. This intensity, especially when coupled with the lack of a score or ambient soundtrack, fashions a tense barrier seldom crossed by dialogue. Denied access to any familiar emotional language through which to interpret the complex relationships and scenarios, the so-called moral of the story is difficult to identify with. That said, not everybody goes to the movies to be entertained. This is a stark and unflinching film about the mundane-ness of the darkest human characteristics, and of the extraordinary simplicity of affliction. Needless to say, not a first-date flick. But an excellent film nonetheless.

NB: Flanders is released in London on 06/07. Also of note on the same day is the free outdoor screening of The Shining at the Chelsea College Of Art And Design (8:45pm).

Brooklyn-based hipsters Animal Collective are back in London to whisk us away to another realm with the imaginative, indefinable blend of folk, hip-hop and electronic pop with which they've delighting us for seven years now. They're at The Coronet, in London's aptly, animally named Elephant and Castle, promoting their album Strawberry Jam (out in September on Domino). Support comes from Nottingham's Late Of The Pier, a band who have been yanking the kids by their new rave braces and shaking them into an indie frenzy from Barcelona to Doncaster, and who are beginning to reap the rewards of their non-stop gigging. First up, though, is New York's Marnie Stern, a maker of inspired rackets, a contemporary of such bands as No Age and Barr, and a woman who will make you feel ALIVE.

This is a factious show where the works aspire to raise dissensions and are prone to clamour against the common. Pretty collages of war crime victims, celebrity obituaries with a twist, pee writing and up-in-your face signs. It all adds up to a thematically curated show where the sum is more than the parts. To stress the theme, the press release is more of a manifesto statement speaking of the rift between individuality and chaos, the flush signature of consumerism and the empty landscape of the sign: "Downshifting through the cultural landscape we find our way through the litter of low frequency events, distorted signage, home-front insurgencies, broken hard-drives, fractured pixels, dead-end obituaries, and other billboards of romantic doom. Here finally sublime grandeur and transcendental stupidity can exist side by side." This is just another attraction and the next exit just one of many, but it won't leave you unimpressed. Just remember to go on a market day and dig into the displays of eclectic Ridley Road Street Market -- the perfect back drop for the roughness of this show.

NB: runs till 21/07. The show is curated by Neville Wakefield and includes works by Dan Colen, Anne Collier, Shannon Ebner, Gardar Eide Einarsson, Adam Helms, Hanna/Klara Liden, Nate Lowman, Adam McEwen, Josh Smith and Banks Violette.

Pat yourself on the back if you know the work of Joan Mitchell (1925-92). That's Joan rather than Joni; the latter sings of wild horses, while the former paints as if horses had run amok. Being a second generation Abstract Expressionist has never been easy -- after all, that first lot did explode the nature of how to make art, before Warhol, Johns and Rauschenberg swept away the Expressionists' doldrums into '60s cool. Mitchell in fact matured that particular American pioneer spirit through French sophistication. Now this museum quality show presents a group of works created just after her permanent move to Paris. Yes, death and darkness is always present, and it's easy to "read" these dark paintings as being guided by Furies -- think Wagner -- but really they are just as close to American Jazz. She is trying to make structure out of paint, that is, turning fluidity into solidity. The result is that some of the paintings from this difficult period look quintessentially of their times, but a few transcend them and seem eternally present.

NB: runs till 21/07.

One of the most fundamentally uncanny experiences one can have is provided, surely, by seeing the world from someone else's point of view. Walks, the cleverly curated show currently at BISCHOFF/WEISS, exploits this displacement to great effect. Villa Cavroix, Guillaume Leblond's contribution, leads us to a murky disintegrating building. The pace is halted, the camera seems to stagger around breathlessly and the effect is heightened by the clacking of the old-fashioned projector as the only soundtrack. The tone is more subdued downstairs where Laurent Montaron's Readings is screened, but the result is no less disturbing. This time we find ourselves gliding smoothly through Meudon's Observatory. The crisp images of an eerie beauty are in constant flux. The predictions of a fortune teller, at once blithely impersonal and so easy to personify, are transcribed as subtitles at the bottom of the screen as if they were a translation of the quietly howling soundtrack. Beware, Walks might leave you with a slight splintering of the self.

NB: runs till 21/07.

On paper, it was always an odd coupling -- a marriage of opposites, beauty and the beast. You could imagine Isobel Campbell, once the gamine cellist and airy chanteuse with none-more-fey Caledonian indie janglers Belle & Sebastian, running a mile at the sight of Mark Lanegan, the glowering, erstwhile lead singer of Washington State grunge merchants Screaming Trees. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Campbell has proven herself a plucky and inventive solo artist (last seen giving Robyn Hitchcock a run for his recherche money at the QEH's Games For May anniversary concert) keen to be shot of the hairclip indie tag, while Lanegan's solo albums evince a facility for introspective singer-songwriting that needs no fuzz pedal justification. Thus the duo's Ballad Of The Broken Seas (2005) was a compelling conflation of unexpectedly compatible styles. It was also a critical tour de force and one of the sleeper hits of the year. The pair's subsequent live performances (which have been all too rare) have elicited no less approbation. Expect an evening of delicate melodic sweetness and raw motel room emotion -- but not necessarily from the obvious sources. Support comes from former Gorky's Zygotic Mynci leader Euros Childs, whose blend of whimsical folk and Velvet Underground-influenced pop is definitely worth turning up early for.

NB: they perform on both 25/07 and 26/07. Both nights will sell out so get your tickets fast. Also of note at the QEH is the Bella Union 10th Anniversary concerts on both 10/07 and 11/07.

Markus Muntean and Adi Rosenblum's latest video and paintings pull the trendy, soul-searching young people dominating previous works into a more socially accountable sphere. Where previous painterly characters hung about together on paper and canvas with a peculiar, old-fashioned sense of purpose at odds with their "yoof" status, the new breed hold the gaze of the viewer, lamenting the futility of their existence -- like fallen disciples tainted with the warts-and-all humanity of the teen. Religiosity punctures the acutely styled beauty of their film Shroud: Gregorian chants and dour War Of The Worlds narration deliver a young man and woman through a post-apocalyptic realm. Nostalgic cartoon borders around the edges of the paintings and tentative mark-making imbue modern youths with the kind of quivering adolescent zeal one might expect from a children's book character on the verge of solving a mystery. Captions at the bottom of each canvas might have been pilfered from 1920s literary illustration plates but for the contemporary messages they convey: "We should have died for something by now...but we...feel free to do as we please, free in a world without freedom."

NB: runs till 29/07.

Rothko have been ploughing their own musical furrow for some years now, gaining more respect and acclaim with each release. After numerous collaborations with Susumu Yakota, Caroline Ross, and releases on Lo Recordings, Bella Union, Bad Hand, Too Pure, Kraak and others, the latest Rothko album is on Marseille-based label BiP_HOp, consolidating their position as masters of post-rock melancholic understatement. From the opening glockenspiel and bass duelling (their signature) on the first track, "Say Something To Someone", and its descent into reverb-soaked low-twanging and low-key percussion -- followed by a wash of haunting strings -- Rothko's evocative modus operandi is economically sketched out.

Refined and noirish, each piece feels like a sketched out cinematic scene, recalling mid-period Wim Wenders and Jim Jarmusch; complete but incomplete, as if just part of a bigger narrative. Comparisons have been made to Mogwai, Mingus, God Speed You! Black Emperor, and more obviously the Thrill Jockey Chicago scene, but maybe these are all too obvious. A subdued track like "Give. Every. Thing." combines these twilight sounds and brings in hints of other elements, from piano to flute, not as foreground pastiches, but as distant chimes. Reminiscent of Samadhi Sound releases like Harold Budd, this is comforting, but dark, wrapped in velvet bass-onomics -- a poignant classic of its own genre.

To buy Eleven Stages Of Intervention online click here.

KultureFlash is a free, weekly newsletter covering contemporary culture in and around London. Each week we track down some of the more unusual and interesting events taking place in the capital and deliver them straight to your inbox. Featuring art, gigs, films, talks, clubs and more -- we are committed to bringing you an eclectic mix of the most stimulating events in London.

If you want to tell us about an upcoming event please do so by sending an email to: events@kultureflash.net. We receive many emails and thus please realise that sadly we cannot reply to all of them. Every single email receives attention and we will contact you if we need anything further. Please note that KultureFlash is not a listings ezine and we do not receive any payment from venues, artists, managers or promoters.

Please send all press releases, invites, books and CDs to:

KultureFlash Ltd.
52 Cranmer Court
Whitehead's Grove
London SW3 3HW