It hasn't taken long for the T Bar to get back up to speed since reopening in their new Houndsditch location, and the programming looks stronger than ever with the introduction of a few new nights into the mix. Serieculture is a fresh club project from the Swayzak guys -- no strangers to the London clubbing circuit, despite this being the first night they've hosted in the capital for 10 years. They're aiming to inject something fresh into the evening, both through their choice of guest DJs and extra-curricular activities (tonight's event features a charity record auction), but dark and moody house and techno are likely to be at the heart of their offering. Their headline guest for the opening night is Peter "Baby" Ford -- one of the most pioneering figures in electronic music, and still as relevant as ever. Through his own labels Ifach, Trelik and Pal SL and regular releases on labels including Perlon, Ford's style of brooding, refined techno has consistently pitched him ahead of the arc. Young 'uns take note. Longtime Swayzak affiliate Onlymatt, backs up Pete and the Swayzak lads themselves.

Director Claire Denis' films all have subtle underlying themes of the difficulties inherent in a sense of belonging -- whether through matters of colonialism (Chocolat), as a soldier (Beau Travail) or with variations on family groups. Not the typical middle class bourgeois families of Gallic cinematic tradition though, but ordinary, working class people -- a rare sight in French cinema. Extending her creative themes to her working methods, Denis has built up her own film family -- a group of artistic collaborators (including musicians Tindersticks) she repeatedly works with. In 35 Shots Of Rum widower Lionel (the enigmatic Alex Descas) lives alone with his daughter, college student Josephine. A loose family of sorts has been formed including his colleague Rene, Gabrielle, a former girlfriend and Noe, the upstairs neighbour. A man of few words, Lionel works in a solitary job as a Metro driver -- constantly on the move, yet following a pre-determined path. Secure in their devotion to each other, both Josephine and Lionel are also aware that there is a pre-determined path to their future -- an evolution that means she must inevitably branch out on her own. Observant, intelligent, subtle and poignant: true love really means letting go.

NB: post screening Claire Denis will appear for an on-stage interview. 35 Shots Of Rum is released in London on 10/07.

With Shoreditch nightlife becoming increasingly like the funky house clubs of central London both in music policy and the people it attracts, Cargo's Free Fridays stands out with its genre-bending endeavour, and this night is no exception. The impossibly young Rye Rye (aka Ryeisha Berrain) performs live before heading off to Glastonbury, so expect to hear glimpses of her much delayed album on M.I.A.'s label N.E.E.T. as well as her well known guest spots on tracks by Diplo, Sinden, Blaqstarr et al. Catalonian hero Meneo makes a rare excursion to London to wow the crowd with the novelty of reggaeton infused electronic beats, filtered through 8-bit console hardware with a visual show to match. CLP, Berlin's resident (and perhaps only?) purveyors of booty bass, are on the ones and twos, and are joined by two rising stars of London nightlife in Bok Bok and L-Vis 1990. The duo who run the ever expanding Night Slugs are starting to get recognition for their production talents with L-Vis 1990's "United Groove", a slice of tribal techno that is set to be the number one bassbin destroyer of the summer. For an example of the UK/US hybrid sound that the duo trade in, check Bok Bok's awesome recent mix for LuckyMe.

With Burial, Zomby and King Midas Sound being three of the most talked about British producers of recent time, Hyperdub's new singing was always going to turn heads. However, with a MySpace track-count racking-up by the minute and a Guardian "Pick Of The Week" already under her belt, Merrisa Campbell (aka Cooly G) looks set to become the first face from the UK funky scene to receive ongoing commercial attention. Fresh from the release of her excellent Narst / Love Dub EP, the TACTiLE promoters bring the South Londoner up to Hackney this Friday. Those always-eager to check out fresh talent, but fearing a venue too caught-up in a scene, will be pleased to hear Tactile have got it just right by picking the laid-back and intimate surroundings of Satchmo's Basement. The club's friendly and inviting atmosphere coupled with a meagre £5 door charge, make this a great little event for music-lovers giving another muddy year at Glastonbury a miss.

Matthew Monahan's current show at Modern Art contrives to feel like a trawl through a junk shop, a wander through an archaeological dig, a visit to a museum and an inadvertent slip into a car-crusher all at once. His series of sad sculptural effigies, bisected, truncated and shambling, with their concertina contours, smears of glitter, drips of wax and bulges of polyurethane, trigger a range of historical references from Pompeii to St Sebastian, while simultaneously suggesting the hubristic remains of a technologically advanced civilisation -- perhaps our own. Their glister is both alluring and nastily evocative of putrefaction and decay; the predominant feeling here is of an irrevocable slide into ruin. Together with the sculptures, Monahan is also showing a series of neat, Durer-esque engravings, together with a pair of rather creepy faces created with charcoal and folds of tissue paper, alluding to a vague mishmash of classical drapery and Doric columns. The most successful sculptures are perhaps the smaller pieces: these intense, distorted figures leer at you as you make your way through the show, while with the larger pieces, the tightness of Monahan's vision unravels slightly. All in all, however, this show ultimately feels like a rich stratification of histories past, present and future.

NB: runs till 27/06.

Joakim has always been an oddball -- something that translates into wonderfully diverse DJ sets and on his own records, finds him sieving pop sensibilities through an extremely wonky filter. It's not all sublime, for sure, but it's always engaging. So it's pretty exciting to see this all rendered into a live band, something he's done often in France but only a handful of times over here. Since Tigersushi's favoured spawn -- K.I.M., Poni Hoax -- have been getting greater recognition of late, it's about time that the scientist behind it all (and more than a few stellar remixes for others) jumps out of the shadows for this celebration of kindred label Lo Recordings. Lo pretty much hit the cosmic nail on the head with their first Milky Disco compilation -- which coincided with an agenda setting performance by Lindstrom and Prins Thomas (who else) in the capital. The second instalment promises a similar adrenaline shot for flagging disco enthusiasts. Meanwhile from the Lo stable comes the oft-overlooked Cursor Miner, who elicits comparisons with everyone from Gary Numan to Aphex Twin. Truthfully he probably lands somewhere in between, and you could do a lot worse than that particular spot.

Jobless techno fans take note! Ben Klock, one of Berlin's most rated DJs, is in town this Sunday for WetYourSelf, which takes place in room one at Fabric. Klock's a class act -- often mentioned in the same breath as fellow-Berghain resident and sometime production partner, Marcel Dettmann; Klock has helped to define the "Berghain sound", but his DJ presence in the city's music scene predates the existing (seemingly endless) Berlin infatuation. His excellent debut album, One, released earlier this year, was a surprisingly varied take on his production sound, with more warmth and depth than one might have expected. As a DJ, he specialises in simmering intensity, and can build sets over several hours (he'll be playing for two, on the night). The music can be metronomic and occasionally stark (one person's heaven is another's hell...?), but anyone who's spent a Saturday/Sunday in the cavernous rave dungeon that is Berghain can attest to its dancefloor effectiveness.

NB: for Berghain fans and as a warm up to WYS! and Ben Klock make sure you check out secretsundaze's party at The Light Bar with Prosumer earlier on in the day (2 - 10:30pm).

Shirin is the first feature to focus entirely upon the reception of a film by its audience -- specifically a hundred-odd women in a dark cinema in Tehran. Demonstrating the art of "not showing", what we see is the women's uninhibited reactions to the film, played out on their faces as they watch. What we don't see (only hear) is the object of their gaze, a melodramatic adaptation of Persian romance Khosrow and Shirin. It's a curious take on objectification. Instead of simply presenting women, Abbas Kiarostami shows them reacting. And consequently it's their mystifying complexities and capacity for emotion which are on show. Not all of us would choose to watch women emoting for 90 minutes, but it's worth noting here that Kiarostami's one hundred actresses hardly represent everywoman, but more the lip-biting doe-eyed vintage Hollywood type (think Olivia de Havilland's Maid Marian). The question is, how could any woman be so entranced by what sounds like the tackiest kind of filmed reconstruction, complete with horse neighs, dungeon atmos and clanging swords? Shirin constitutes a pared-down fakery, but fakery nonetheless, where the lesser known faces of Iranian cinema only play the parts of sensational women. Even if they play them very well.

NB: Shirin is released in London on 26/06.

It seems that today, even more so than when London and most everywhere were booming, we are still obsessed with money: how to make any and how to keep hold of it. Gordon was wrong, he didn't end boom and bust; in fact the "financial tsunami" was so huge that he, like many other experts, didn't see it coming. The banks stopped lending, property was inflated, and the pound overvalued; oh, didn't this happen to Japan a couple of decades ago? America waved the starting flag; everyone borrowed deeply, they sold their debt to China, the Chinese bought too much of it... Do you understand all this? Why if you'd lived within your means, didn't borrow too much and paid your debts, your savings are now worth nought? Well only a small handful of naysayers noticed it was all going to go bust. But few of them can explain it to us simply. Now the Beeb's Newsnight economic editor, Paul Mason was just one of the eagle-eyed types, with a blog and book, Meltdown: The End Of The Age Greed that documents in layman's terms the complicated twists and turns our bankers have landed us in. Not to worry though, Obama says that there are "green shoots"...

Isaac Julien is an unusual case for those cinephiles like us who also indulge a deep appreciation for visual arts. A prolific filmmaker who confidently straddles the void between art and cinema -- a void so deep and problematic that few have managed to successfully navigate across it without alienating audiences on either side. Oscillating between video works designed as installations that highlight the complexity of the role of the artist as filmmaker, artist as historian, as biographer or as interloper between the worlds of art and cinema, and works for the big screen that demonstrate Julien's cinematic prowess, his work speaks of intimate histories, transitional identities and the relationship between the margins of society and its centre, with particular attention paid to issues of race, class and sexual orientation. Rich Mix is hosting a retrospective of Julien's work where they will be screening Derek -- a widely acclaimed portrait of British filmmaker and queer cinema pioneer Derek Jarman -- and Looking For Langston on 01/07, along with a rare opportunity to hear the artist discuss his films immediately afterwards. On the 08/07, Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask will be screened alongside Territories, an investigation into the identities and conflicts proposed by the Notting Hill Carnival.

NB: this retrospective takes place on both 01/07 and 08/07.

Sometimes you need music that makes you feel good about being alive. Gut wrenching ballads can make you appreciate life in a particular way -- it's surprising anyone has ever listened to This Mortal Coil's "Song To The Siren" and survived, for example -- but sometimes you need a band that just makes you feel happy. Generally optimistic. Like getting out of bed was a really good idea. Deerhoof is one of those bands. Don't mistake a general good vibe for a lack of complexity -- their sound is hyper and raw with rangy cadences and musical narratives that can take us to dark and peculiar places, but they take us there with a sense of adventure that is hard to come by. Satomi Matsuzaki's vocals are chirpy and childlike, but still no-nonsense and straight to the point -- like the unflinchingly earnest question asked by a four year old. Set this against the ever more gregarious and investigative sound we have come to know and love, and you have the makings of a show that is bound to make you want to bounce around the pit, all the stresses of London living notwithstanding. They are loud, energetic and great live, so if you haven't seen them yet, now's your chance.

Thank fuck for Joe Corre. Seriously. Arguably much of the nation's sex lives have been, errr, uplifted by Agent Provocateur's myriad naughty knickers, sequinned nipple tassels, saucy suspenders and beautifully sexy bras, which have welcomed elegant kink into the home, given it a good meal and a warm bed for the night -- and then gotten down to bad business. That began 15 years ago, and the erotic lingerie emporium that Corre set up with his then wife (Serena Rees, before she ran off with a rock star) continues to go from strength to strength -- economies, countries and cities may rise and fall, but their underwear continues to tease and tantalise both wearer and whomsoever is lucky enough to catch a glimpse of them. Being the son of Vivienne Westwood, Corre's commitment to chic-sleaze won't really shock, nor will his continued political activism, nor his metaphorical giving the finger to Tony Blair in 2007 by refusing his MBE, but ever since we spotted an AP half-cup bra and "ouvert" panties in our boss' bag we've been over shock anyway. He gives a talk in the dilapidated splendour of Miller's academy, so the whole thing will be gloriously louche.

When Frank Gehry's rather extraordinary Serpentine Pavilion opened last year everyone wondered whether the gallery could ever turn out another to beat it. Now Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa of Japanese architecture firm SANAA are the fearless duo who have taken on that challenge. They might look unassuming but they are responsible for some of the most articulate and thoughtful architecture of recent years. Their New Museum design in New York looks like it was inspired by Rachel Whiteread's 2005 Turbine Hall commission, a higgledy-piggledy pile of white cubes in an apparently casual stack on the Bowery sidewalk. For the Serpentine they have gone back to basics with a design, a minimal amount and number of materials; the graceful structure consists simply of an undulating polished aluminium roof and steel supporting poles. Its simplicity is based on a sensitivity to its bucolic surroundings in Kensington Gardens. Hear these quiet geniuses deliver their vision inside their latest creation on the evening before it opens to the public.

NB: SAANA's pavilion is on view from 12/07 till 18/10.

Mincemeat is the latest show by Cardboard Citizens, whose commitment is to make theatre with the homeless. The title is only the first of the deceptions that the show plays with. Clever use of space, for instance, in this intriguing promenade performance through a disused building in Shoreditch, allows for a circular journey where rooms are temporarily "dressed" to echo the wartime stories being told by the actors. The great national myth of the Blitz is challenged, as "heroic" homelessness is counter-posed with the enduring social and mental dislocations that seem to be otherwise peacefully accepted. With "false starts" and "false endings", the show nonetheless wears its meta-theatricality lightly. To enter heaven, the play proposes, you have first to know who you are and how you died, and we follow one such journey of self-knowledge. Arguably, it is the very task of culture to preserve the memory of the dead -- especially by uncovering the deceptions of the great memorials of state; indeed, by exploring what it might mean "to die for one's country", rather than simply to keel over in the street.

NB: runs till12/07.

Dick Bird's set of doomed London nightclub Arizona has tentacles that reach into the audience, drawing us into the action as each new character bursts onto the stage through a door on the balcony. Gil (Harry Hepple) is first to bound through the entrance, confronting passive bar-owner Barney (played gently by British soul singer Omar Lye-Fook). Gil is looking for the man that stole his love, provoking much laughter with his interpretation of the script, played with the rhythmic rhyming slang of Mike Skinner from The Streets. Che Walker's play was written back in 1998, yet the dialogue stills seems fresh and relevant, perhaps because the story is essentially about love, of the unrequited kind. Arthur Darvill's score successfully uses soul music to turn the script into a punchy, emotive musical. Naana Agyei-Ampadu impresses most with her explosive entrance, her character Yvonne waxing lyrical about men, half rapping, half singing "I've been getting fantasies sat at my Apple Mac", with the sex appeal of a Bermondsey-Beyonce. Three backing singers grace the balcony, emerging from the shadows to inject passion into each song like ghosts of Motown past. A feel-good experience that leaves you uplifted and ready for some summer lovin'.

NB: runs till 15/07.

Jeremy Moon (1934-1973) died tragically young. Like Dylan, a motorcycle stopped him in his stride, but unlike the troubadour he didn't get to walk away and write the likes of Nashville Skyline and Self-Portrait. As a result Moon has all but disappeared from Britain's Top "of the painting" Pops. However thanks to the Rocket, we're slowly rediscovering the man's oeuvre. This third exhibition of his work is confined mainly to large geometric paintings of his last years -- and they show us what we have lost. Suggesting Battenburg cakes and noughts and crosses, Moon uses the chequered pattern or grid to great effect. The paintings are abstract and seemingly hard-edged, but look closely they are still very hand-made objects. Do not be fooled by the online images. Like Mary Heilmann and Ellsworth Kelly (at the two extremes), Moon's formal nature is punctured by his wit and verve. They are at once lyrical and "jazzy". Today it seems so difficult to realise their radical quality -- well, actually, that might just be what makes them radical...

NB: runs till 25/07.

All's Well That Ends Well is one of Shakespeare's so-called problem plays: it ends with a wedding but it's hardly a comedy. Marianne Elliott's production in the Olivier at the NT brings out the many fairytale elements in the story. Michelle Terry's spirited Helena variously resembles Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Dorothy and Gretel as she battles for the love of her errant husband, the undeserving Betram, played with charming coltishness by George Rainsford. Rae Smith's vast set looks as if Dracula has invited Tim Burton to give his castle a makeover. Spiky claw-topped towers punch up towards a projected backdrop across which owls, bats, wolves and spiders wander from time to time. The play offers starkly contrasting depictions of masculine buffoonery and duplicity with female endurance and steadfastness. Clare Higgins is excellent as the Countess of Rousillon: she is a support and prop to Helena rather than a wicked stepmother. The production comes in at three hours and, only in the closing seconds, will you find out if they all live happily ever after.

NB: runs till 30/09.

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