Although everyone from The London Lite to Italian Vogue have recently woken up to the fact that disco is a good thing, and that Dalston has more to offer up than just crack and kebabs, summer is almost here and that means that even in "the centre of the universe" dancing the night away in a basement can be an uninviting prospect. Hence disco evangelists The Last Days Of Disco are taking a well-earned vacation to work on their tans -- butl they have one last party to throw this Friday and it's looking quite special. Though generally associated with New York, disco-punk institution DFA have increasingly been looking beyond the five boroughs to maintain their solid gold rep. Two UK acts who have recently caught the eyes (and ears) of the label are Capracara and Cage & Aviary (aka Jamie Paton + Nigel Of Bermondsey), and they will be joining Last Days residents David H and the Slutty Fringe boys in celebrating their ever growing cult of disco and sending the night off in style.

The programming team that made The End such a success head south of the river and emerge as We Fear Silence at London Bridge venue The Arches. We Fear Silence join forces with two of the capital's most trusted promoters in Eat Your Own Ears and Greco-Roman with a line-up that is as impressive as it is varied. For those seeking sleek synth heavy electro pop, Canadian duo Junior Boys are on hand, playing live with a new album's worth of material at the ready. Junior Boys' compatriots Circlesquare also play live, pleasing fans of romantic melodic techno, who will no doubt also be delighted at the inclusion of German producer Pantha du Prince on the bill. The requisite amount of wub wub is provided by Shackleton, boss of the now defunct Skull Disco label and someone whose music isn't shy of stepping outside the dubstep template. Soul mates Caribou and Four Tet are also on hand to entertain with their somewhat scattergun approach to DJing.

Sixto Diaz Rodriguez, son of Detroit Chicano emigrants, released his debut album, Cold Fact in 1970, and a follow-up a year later, but when his politically conscious synthesis of folk, rock, and RnB failed to find a public, his label dropped him. Had Cold Fact been released after, rather than before, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On it would have been better understood. Rodriguez went back to school and entered the working world, leaving behind his music. Yet in Australia and New Zealand, his music had more impact, and the Down Under releases of his albums found their way to South Africa, where they went platinum. Since their re-release in the US and UK over the last two years, the cult has finally taken root here too. In retrospect, it's hard to understand how these bleak, hard-hitting songs, delivered in the most haunting voice imaginable over moody psychedelic arrangements, could ever have been overlooked. Hear them once and you feel like you've known them forever. Now the 67-year-old singer is on tour, making the songs of his younger days sound new again.

The entire Institute of Contemporary Arts ? galleries, bar, cinema, theatre included ? is to be consumed by an all-nighter this Saturday, handled by Rinse FM, dollop, Work It, Night Train and Cocadisco. It's a serotonin-fuelled supergroup of ace London promoters and DJs. The plan seems to be some kind of beyond-genre orgy where half-breeds are spawned, squelching and wonking, bleeping and (please yes) bootybassing their way into our insipid souls, giving us a few hours of dark noisy bliss where time becomes non-linear and '90s Balearic flashbacks deliver us into a funky future (indeed, a future where "funky" has become an acceptable word again). DJ-archivist-writer Bill Brewster and the magnificent Leila from Warp are also playing, and if it all gets too nish-clish-banging, there's a few variations on the chill-out room: at the "reminiscence salon" you'll be able to compare notes on Blackpool Mecca vs Maximes vs Blitz (with the help of a blackboard and chalk, brilliantly) and in the cinemas there's a small programme of rave and dance documentaries.

Four weeks into the London club game, Cable have already rounded-up the key-players of the current UK techno scene and staged an eclectic assortment of the big names leading the new wave revival. Having flown Chateau Flight and Rub N Tug in for their launch night last month, Future Flash (Cable's in-house night) looks like a fortnightly shindig worth keeping a beady eye on. With fellow South London promoters Bleep43 bringing Donato Dozzy to Corsisca Studios next weekend, the Future Flash team line-up two of Berghain's other top boys. Deep house figurehead Prosumer (aka Achim Brandenburg) leads the line with long-term associate, Frank Timm (aka Hack from Smith n Hack) spinning under his Soundstream moniker. High-status residents, Will Saul and Dave Congreve are both on-board again to back-up the Berliners. Whilst DFA's Mock & Toof join Rekids' Toby Tobias to hold court in Room 2 with help from the London-half of Hardway Bros, Sean Johnston. Highly recommended.

Pilloried by modern audiences for his racist views (The Birth Of A Nation) silent film director DW Griffith's other (at the time) controversial belief -- feminism -- has been largely overlooked. Griffith, the first superstar film director and originator of both the feature-length film and the blockbuster movie, gave meaty starring roles to feisty early actresses Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. Way Down East, made in 1920 (the same year as US suffrage) stars Gish as Anna, a penniless innocent country girl who is tricked into a false marriage by a rich womanizer in the city. Seduced, pregnant and abandoned, the story actively condemns the double standards in society towards the "fallen woman" and the "playboy". One of the highest grossing silent films ever, it has romance, villains, fistfights, a poignant death (hankies recommended) and a gripping last-moment rescue from the (actual) waterfall-bound ice floes of a rushing river. The screening will be accompanied by a live performance of the original 1920s score conducted by Gillian Anderson.

NB: also of note is the British Silent Film Festival which runs from 04/06 till 06/06.

With the dearth of venues with decent outside spaces in London, the arrival earlier this year of the Queen Of Hoxton, complete with rooftop garden, has been quite a godsend. This weekend, if the weather holds up of course, there will be few better places to waste a Sunday than sunning yourself a hundred foot or so above Curtain Road whilst enjoying a suitably tropical disco soundtrack at the excellent Escape From New York party. Having filled the place to capacity at the last two bank holidays, this third effort featuring the indisputably amazing Prince Language, alongside the usual East London disco reprobates, should be no different. One of Gotham's finest DJs/remixers/re-editors, his skills are regularly called upon by the likes of DFA to sprinkle his own brand of magic over their releases, just see his masterful remix of The Juan Maclean's "Happy House" for ample proof. It kicks off early, so set your alarm and head down for cocktails and BBQ to warm you up for a long day of dancing.

This year Cannes Film Festival celebrated the centenary of film director Joseph Losey's birth by screening his 1967 Cannes Jury Prize winner Accident. The second of the collaborations between Losey, screenwriter Harold Pinter and actor Dirk Bogarde (after 1963's brilliant The Servant), the film is set in Oxford, with Bogarde as a Philosophy don who becomes involved in a power struggle with both another don and a student over one of his female students. As with The Servant, both simmering sexual tension and class conflict are obliquely examined, and Bogarde is as enigmatic and psychologically complicated as in the earlier film. Pinter's writing -- as expected -- highlights the things that are not said directly as the most powerful and important -- meaningful silences and coded conversations that betray the clashes between people. Accident also marked the debut of heartthrob Michael York and continued Losey's fruitful partnership with master jazz composer John Dankworth.

NB: Accident is screening at the BFI Southbank from 05/06 till 18/06 and is part of the BFI's complete retrospective of Joseph Losey's work which runs from 05/06 till 23/07.

Ever been mislead into thinking that suburban life in America is dull? Then see this film immediately. Scratch its sleepy surface and Levittown, New York -- the prototypical American suburb built in the late '40s for a sudden influx of homebound soldiers -- is positively crawling with wonderful weirdness. Casual conversations about the good old days include everything from wife-swapping to tragedy on a toilet seat, and expose patriotism vast enough to include ritualistic flag burning and weight lifting beauty queens. Wonderland mixes an odd familiarity with a deliciously frank eccentricity. Designed to be a futuristic village for the youth of the '50s, Levittown hurtled through time until it became a retirement town for unrepentant sexual deviants and their maladjusted children, fanatical dog walkers and lovers of a natural wood finish. As each story unfolds, we are lead through the lives of the first suburban dwellers, and glimpses into the reality of daily living in a dysfunctional tract housing dystopia reveal deep affections, dangerous paranoia and a dawning realization that there is nothing dull about suburbia.

NB: post screening the film's director, John O'Hagan, will be in conversation with Geoff Shearcroft of AOC Architecture.

Deadly People continue their impressive vein of parties in 2009 (booking the Mighty Boosh DJ aside) with a rare live appearance from Lindstrom. If the Beard Disco elite had AGMs the cosmic Norwegian would surely chair them, such is his status in the contemporary Balearic disco revival. Having just released his second album with close buddy Prins Thomas and with this Lindstrom's only live date in London this year, tonight's proceedings should be filed under "ah yes, must see". If you need anymore convincing esteemed label Italians Do It Better fly in for a showcase of talent old and new. Hoxton hairdressers' favourites Glass Candy play London all too rarely and the mass acoustics of KOKO should fit the vocal talents of Glass Candy's hyperactive sexpot front woman Ida No to a tee. Joining them are two new acts to the label in Desire (aka Johnny Jewel, Megan Louise and Nat Walker) and Twisted Wires, both of whom have secured plenty of blog word love, despite a relative paucity of actual releases. Label boss Mike Simonetti fills in the gaps with some jaunty Italo Disco.

Meltdown continues its annual adventure by inviting Ornette Coleman to curate this year's concerts. Now in his 80s, Coleman is nevertheless still a stranger to many, despite the fact that his brand of free jazz "harmolodics" has influenced a wide range of artists from different generations. The decision to have him curate the festival marks a welcome move on from the more subtly populist leanings of recent years, and gives us a wonderfully esoteric set of concerts spanning a myriad of influences and styles. Of particular note are the concerts that bring over artists who very rarely appear in London at all (let alone on one of the stages at the Southbank Centre).

Long-time exile Fred Frith, who has a unique take on the guitar's seemingly infinite possibilities, is finally acknowledged in a concert with the similarly iconic Mike Patton (18/06). One of Ornette's most underrated collaborators, James "Blood" Ulmer will open the door to a re-wired vision of the frontiers between blues, funk, soul and jazz (16/06). David Murray performs with Guadeloupian percussionists Gwo-Ka Masters and free jazz bassist (and Coleman collaborator) Jamaaladeen Tacuma in what will surely turn out to be one of the most seismic invocations of the festival (13/06). Finally, Yoko Ono will no doubt perplex audiences once again with a curiously assembled line-up of her "conceptual supergroup", featuring Sean Lennon, Mark Ronson and Cornelius (14/06).

NB: runs from 12/06 till 21/06.

It has been said that the path of spiritual growth is one of lifelong learning, but for those impatient of exploring this search for universal understanding, the Equinox Festival offers a compressed channel of education and illumination. Aiming to bridge the gap between contemporary and more traditional models of spiritual discovery, through presentation, performance and interaction, it's a cornucopia of exploratory, edgy, untamed and experiential ideas and possibilities. Academics and theorists such as Erik Davis and Ralph Metzner nudge up against screenings by collagist Craig Baldwin, eccentric visionary Harry Smith, Maya Deren, Timothy Leary, and Ira Cohen -- a perfect example of this adventurous programme in his ability to join the dots between Tangier trance music of the '50s, Paul Bowles, Kenneth Anger, Brion Gysin and Ornette Coleman. Sonic magic can be heard from the likes of prolific American composer and saxophonist John Zorn, and ritualistic sounds from Peter Christopherson of Throbbing Gristle with his Threshold House Boys Choir, Z'EV, T.A.G.C./Adi Newton, and Comus for their first UK show in 35+ years. Serenity can be found in the darkest horizons; for this night London will be transcendent.

Since releasing what was effectively a greatest hits collection on Fabric's label in March, the self-proclaimed "Grandson of Detroit", Omar-S, has witnessed his once-underground profile meteorically catapult, and rightfully so. However, for those in the know, the big attraction here will be the long-awaited, UK-debut performance from Rome's ambient mastermind, Donato Dozzy. Anyone can pack a floor by spinning anthems to euphoric, peak-time crowds, but the Italian's reputation has been built around his legendary after-hours sets at Berlin's infamous Panorama Bar. Often tasked with keeping the Capital's party people in the zone till 11am and sometimes beyond, Dozzy tends to spin in his own specifically customized, trance productions. To promote this four-hour, debut performance, organisers Bleep43 have set up a link to the producer's set at last year's Labyrinth Festival in Japan, and it's well worth the download time. Take note, this event is likely to be packed to the rafters well before the small hours.

Madwomen in the attic, ghosts of lovers wailing to each other across a windswept moor -- the creations of the Bronte sisters have exerted a powerful influence on both the literary and popular imagination ever since their publication, from Jean Rhys' powerful reinterpretation of Jane Eyre in Wide Sargasso Sea, to Kate Bush's epic '80s pop paean to Cathy and Heathcliff. In this talk, Princeton professor emerita Elaine Showalter traces the wide-ranging impact of the Brontes' works, including Wuthering Heights, Jane Eye, Villette and The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, on nineteenth century American writers. Novelists and poets from Emily Dickinson to Sarah Orne Jewett mined the Bronte's characters and narratives -- and the intense, tragic life story of the sisters themselves, recorded in Elizabeth Gaskell's Life Of Charlotte Bronte -- to create new scenarios and interpretations. Expect incisive, illuminating exposition from this doyenne of feminist literary criticism.

NB: Elaine Showalter will be in conversation with editor, author and publisher Ion Trewin. Catch Showalter for another talk at the London Review Bookshop on 09/06 (7pm).

Fresh from promoting the Cantona-starring Looking For Eric in Cannes, with a short stop off in Marseille to discuss the NPA and the state of Britain, stalwart director Ken Loach comes to the ICA to mark his latest release (a comedy, apparently) and the 25th anniversary of controversial factual film Which Side Are You On? The film, intended to document the divisive miners' strikes in '84, was pulled by ITV before broadcast due to "its highly partial view on a controversial subject" -- we all know which side Ken's on -- and thus neatly demonstrated its premise: the unbalanced nature of news and media censorship. With characteristically big heart and even bigger balls, Ken goes straight to the horse's mouth, drawing on songs and poems from the miners, along with their testaments of police violence, and setting them against the media's accounts of "picket-line violence!" It's vintage Loach. And part of a week-long season aptly named In Ken We Trust, which we do, and the man himself will be there to answer, amongst other things, "Why Cantona?".

NB: Looking For Eric is released in London on 12/06 and In Ken We Trust runs at the ICA from 09/06 till 16/06. Also of note is the Screen Salon with Ian Haydn Smith on Ken Loach on 14/06 (5pm) at the Curzon Richmond.

Two great concerts to mark a special musical event: the 50th anniversary of Colin Davis' first performance with the LSO under his baton. Davis, unquestionably one of the world's leading and most highly-regarded conductors, a pioneer of Berlioz and Sibelius, but equally well-regarded for his Mozart, has worked with many of the world's best orchestras. He was appointed principal conductor of the LSO (itself more than 100 years old) in 1995. The first concert (17/06) brings together Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 5 with Brahms' Symphony No 3. The "Emperor" was not Beethoven's own label for this concerto, but it aptly describes its majesty and scale. Its soaring, passionate yet clear harmonies have made it one of the most recognizable of his piano concertos. The second concert (21/06) combines Mozart's glorious Symphony No 40, probably the best-loved of his symphonies with its unforgettable nervous opening refrain, with Brahms' Piano Concerto No 2, whose combination of symphonic breadth and rich melody bears strong similarities with the "Emperor". Both evenings promise to be full of colour, variety and dynamism: it will be difficult to choose!

NB: 17/06 features Paul Lewis on piano and 21/06 features Nelson Freire.

Fancy some free sex? Ok, not quite, but a free luxurious aphrodisiac love-in at Coco de Mer (Kensington) replete with lavish Bulldog Gin cocktails (like From London In Love, Double Crush, Big Ben and Friday I'm In Love) laced with aphrodisiacs including Dragon Eye (good for stamina apparently -- and who couldn't do with more o'that?). In this salon held at the sophisticated erotica boutique, a hot, sweaty, sultry summer of love is in full swing with entertainment from "filthy swing" band Top Shelf Jazz, tips on stimulation and arousal from the Salon Mistress, aphrodisiac jellies by jellymongers Bompas & Parr (also featuring at the Futurist Aerobanquet on 19/06) and myriad cocktails to tickle your fancy and make your heart beat faster -- plus there's 20% off Coco de Mer naughty products. While we can't guarantee it'll descend into a cosmopolitan orgy, we certainly hope.

NB: email your details to bulldog@apr-consultancy.com to be added to the list.

Eccentric purveyors of vintage glamour Time For Tea and the experimental epicureans behind jellymongers Bombas & Parr bring us the Futurist Aerobanquet, a surrealist gourmet fantasy. It begins in various locations scattered across London, travels to Hurley to The Olde Bell inn and spills outdoors for indulgent sugary treats on the verdant grass, accompanied by a variety of extraordinary and ebullient entertainment. With the flying theme carrying diners between courses, from takeoff, via turbulence to crash landing, the menu is an eclectic adventure that begins with cocktails including a concoction of Bulldog Gin, gentian and green walnut liqueurs; teases with canapes such as black olives, fennel hearts and kumquats (served from vintage suitcases); tantalises with a tasting selection featuring geraniums on a stick and a cubist vegetable patch, before launching into a hearty main course which is part culinary delight, part artistic creation -- pork fuselage complete with pastry air traffic control tower -- and the grand finale: the eye-popping architectural feat of a jelly and ice cream airport. Biggles, you don't know what your missing.

Anarchic gender-bending industrial post-punk rockers are gracing London's throngs of adoring fans in a rare fanfare of sensory delights. Throbbing Gristle has ambient horrorshow still forms the basis for their meticulous audio-visual deconstructions of the social conventions we all know and love. Performing a very special second show to follow the earlier gig supported by S.C.U.M that sold out with lightning speed, TG will appear with Cerith Wyn Evans at the later show. If this seems an unexpectedly subtle twist to TG's usual onslaught of immersive sensory assault, it shouldn't -- Wyn Evans' work has had a long-standing flirtation with a luminous dark side. The two gigs follow one after the other, with the first finishing at 8pm, the second starting at 9pm, so don't dilly-dally. The shows will be short and sweet(ish) and will be strictly separated.

NB: for those of you going to the Venice Biennale make sure you catch Cerith Wyn Evans and Florian Hecker's No night No day (04/06, 05/06 and 06/06).

Ingrid Calame's first solo exhibition in London combines dreamy tracings of post-industrial surfaces, collected from a range of locations in the city of Buffalo, NY, with the post-modern take on non-representational art for which she has become justly well known. While each mark and contour has been meticulously collected from the surfaces of a parking lot, wading pool and giant steel mill shed floor respectively, colour is built more intuitively, either in the traced lines of the drawings or layer by layer in oil paint on aluminium. The paintings, in particular, take on another life as their colours react differently to each other at various distances, at times making the flat aluminium surfaces seem warped from further away. That something as basic as tracing should form the source for a body of work of such Ruskinian intensity is in itself interesting, but also for a culture obsessed with cause and effect when looking at visual art, the way Calame provides access to her source material should allow a UK audience to also enjoy a highly sophisticated form of abstraction.

NB: runs till 27/06.

This production is the climactic finale of the Royal Court's retrospective on the plays of writer/actor Wallace Shawn. Kitchen-sink drama on the surface, it details stories collated by the titular Lemon as she grows up, and concentrates on the hedonistic tales of her beloved and controversially minded Aunt Dan. Jane Horrocks, with a threatening blend of innocence and vitriol, is effectively unsettling as the unabashed loner, Lemon. Her intoxicating strangeness leads us through a play that is difficult viewing and sometimes hard to position your connection to. Lizzie Clachan's domestic set and a central cold protagonist that is neither antihero nor underdog initiates a battle between your emotions and your senses -- this looks like home but doesn't feel like it. And that is indeed the point. What is to the naked eye a tale of the companionship is in fact a very forthright examination of human empathetic indifference and the shunning of an automated belief in the inherent goodness of the intellectual. This production is what all theatre should be: provocative, contentious, and utterly seductive.

NB: runs till 27/06. Also at the Royal Court is Grasses Of A Thousand Colours, part two of the Wallace Shawn season (and Shawn's first new play in over a decade), which also runs till 27/06. Finally, catch Shawn in conversation on 09/06 (5:30pm).

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