The 10 best New Year's Eve nights out in the UK
Bloc Offensive: NYE, London
Shave your head, pick out some obscure sportswear and prepare for total gabber meltdown at this summit of Europe’s most formidable hipsters. Evian Christ and his strobe-rich Trance Party series is joining forces with Swedish collective Year0001, continuing Christ’s mission to champion some of the most garish corners of dance. Here he recruits Waxweazle, the Dutch DJ whose hardcore productions redefine insistency, and goes back to back with the Justin Bieber of deconstructed club music, Kamixlo. Bladee, Yung Sherman and HVAD are the Scandi guests, playing fearsomely dystopian trap. A bracing start to the year that will either blow down the boundaries of taste or be a bit of a nightmare – most likely both. Oh, and the accompanying Wikipedia page for the event is quite something.
Twitch NYE, Belfast
This year the veteran night bid goodbye to its longtime home at the Bunatee in the Queen’s university student union, but continues to champion the best in off-kilter techno in their ongoing itinerant parties. For New Year they host Pangaea, who as onethird of Hessle Audio pointed a potential escape route for dubsteppers who didn’t want to drop comedy basslines on American teens. His dub-aware techno is brilliantly designed, and he released one of the biggest underground tracks of the year with the swinging, stupidly fun junglism of Bone Sucka. Patterns NYE, Brighton
One of the weirder stories in dance music in recent times is that a wave of lo-fi DJ-producers with stupid names – DJ Boring, DJ Seinfeld et al – turned out not to be wacky chuckle-merchants but actually quite melancholic and deep. Chief among them was Ross from Friends, who may sound like an insufferably unfunny hipster but actually put out a solid album of melodic breakbeat-house jams this year (the clenched 4/4 of Project Cybersyn being the pick of the bunch). Here, he joins hedonistic queer party dons Horse Meat Disco, who also have parties up at Manchester’s Gorilla and HiFi Club in Leeds.
Steppin’ Out: New Years Eve 80s Party, Bristol
As a complete snob I must inform you that anything involving ball ponds, holi paint, official hashtags and recognisable fun isn’t real clubbing – but it’s tough to resist the siren call of this fabulous-sounding event. Yes, there’s street food, neon face-painting, rollerskaters and prizes for the best 80s fancy dress, but even the most socially awkward muso will thrill to the selections of Bill Brewster, fabled as having some of the deepest, weirdest disco and funk crates in the business. Other rooms host B-boy hip-hop, 80s pop smashes and groove-driven world music of the era.
Wigflex x Multimodal NYE, Nottingham
With 8,500 records gleaned from about 30 years of collecting and living across Asia and Europe, Jane Fitz has amassed a formidable arsenal of deep house obscurities, tending towards the fugged, psychedelic end of the spectrum. She plays longform at this event, featuring a brand new custom visual environment from Matt Woodham – which, judging by his overwhelming previous efforts, might require a sit down with a camomile tea in a very dark room afterwards.
E1 & Percolate, London
Floating Points is just as adept at slinging globe-spanning disco and techno as he is playing his own cosmic music live, and he will do the former at this excellently renovated warehouse space, alongside fellow disco beardstrokers Daphni (AKA Caribou) and Leon Vynehall plus Eclair Fifi, Djrum and more.
Soup Kitchen NYE, Manchester
One of the breakout stars of the brilliant Local Action label has been Finn, whose track Sometimes the Going Gets a Little Tough sampled classic girlgroup soul to Ibiza-dominating effect this year. With an ear cocked to the high tempos of speed garage and rave classics, his sets can have you looking like a melted candle in minutes. He’s backed here by local heroes Conor Thomas, Anz, Tom Boogizm and India Jordan. In:Motion NYE, Bristol
A veritable Celebrations tub of variety, with the prized Malteser very much being Todd Edwards, the man who has done everything from win a Grammy with Daft Punk to essentially inventing UK garage by accident with his sublime chopped-sample house. Tech-houser Hannah Wants can tend towards the generic, but she’ll certainly keep energy levels up; this being Bristol, there’s also brilliant drum’n’bass showing from Sub Focus, TC back to back with Annix, and the screwfaceinducing supergroup of Jungle Warriors (that’s Kenny Ken, Remarc, Potential Badboy and the Ragga Twins). Auld Prang Syne, anyone?
Five Miles New Year’s Eve, London Thirteen hours of fun here, starting with a tasting menu from Middle Eastern fusion pop-up Torshi, with matched beers and cocktails, followed by a club night (with standalone tickets available) featuring an extended set from Maurice Fulton, whose bold, sensual productions for Róisín Murphy this year have furthered his legacy as one of the great journeymen of British dance culture. It’s on till 7am, but those in search of something harder for the wee hours could wander up past B&Q to the Cause for doof-centric tech-house by the Wiggle crew.
La Cheetah x Cooking With Palms Trax, Glasgow
But if push comes to shove, this is the best lineup in the UK this New Year’s Eve. Palms Trax, whose warmly disco-inflected productions and sets are always a pleasure, curates and plays alongside Shanti Celeste, who shares his affinity for crowdpleasing, emotionally rich analogue house. The real draw is the downstairs space, though, which reunites a pair of women – Avalon Emerson and Or:la – whose recent joint sets took in everything from menacing acid to Janet Jackson and coldwave obscurities. They’ll make the new year feel like a Brexit-free vista of meaningful beauty until, ooh, at least 2pm the following day.