FRIDAY 29th May – MONDAY 2nd May

The Maestro
Everyone has heard Ennio Morricone’s work. From the coyote howls of his iconic The Good, the Bad and the Ugly theme music to his more recent Oscar-winning score on Quentin Tarantino’s neo-western The Hateful Eight, Morricone’s work is synonymous with the great era of spaghetti westerns. Having sadly passed away in 2020, Morricone’s legacy is brightly remembered via a new documentary by Oscar-winning director Giuseppe Tornatore. Through interviews with those he worked with and inspired, including long-time collaborator Sergio Leone, Ennio celebrates the maestro’s eminent scores that conjured a narrative as deep and textured as the visuals on-screen.

Ennio is in cinemas now.

The future, now
The brutalist architecture of 180 Studios is no stranger to being transformed into a haven for modern and contemporary art. Their latest exhibition Future Shock is blurring the boundaries between the physical and the virtual, coming after the success of their previous exhibitions such as LUX and Ryoji Ikeda’s trippy light shows. Co-curated alongside cultural institution Fact, a host of UK and world premieres from a range of multimedia artists specialising in 3D digital mapping, holographic projections and interactive algorithms have come together to hand visitors a key to virtual reality. Plug in, freak out.

Read our article on the exhibition here.

Future Shock runs at 180 The Strand until August 28th, more info here. 

Holy moly
Arriving on Hulu this weekend is the TV adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s bestselling true-crime novel, Under the Banner of Heaven – we’ve been waiting for this one. A seven-part detective series penned by Oscar-winning scriptwriter Dustin Lance Black tells the story of  The Church of Latter Day Saints’ rise to prominence alongside the 1984 murder of a mother and child in Utah that posed undeniable links to the church. Directed by David Mackenzie and Isabel Sandoval, HERO 21 cover star Andrew Garfield stars as Mormon detective Jeb Pyre while Daisy Edgar-Jones plays the brutally murdered Brenda Lafferty.

Under the Banner of Heaven is now streaming on Hulu. 

Clear your bookshelves – incoming! 
Excellent cultural curators Record 28 have opened up a shiny new pop-up bookstore on Whitecross Street. Digging through their collection, the space is lined with an impressive stock of rare and limited-edition books, zines and ephemera from across the decades. Here, Gilbert & George’s Dirty Words Pictures tome sits alongside a VHS copy of Talking Heads’ Storytelling Giant while rare music zines are stacked beneath a JW Anderson and Juergen Teller pin-up calendar hanging on the wall. You can also pick up a Record 28 fan scarf if you fancy it, but most importantly, make sure to give their resident dog Patch a stroke when you stop by.

Record 28 Bookshop is located at 141-143 Whitecross Street, EC1Y 8JJ, check out their Instagram here. 

Weekend earworm
Iceage, Denmark’s finest return with a brand new track, All the Junk on the Outskirts following their 2021 album Seek Shelter. Originally tracked during the sessions for their incredible 2018 record Beyondless, it just didn’t quite fit, and so it was put to the side before the band felt it was ready to be released to the world.

“I consider this one of the better cuts off the Beyondless sessions, but it ended up being a misfit that wouldn’t quite fit in with the other songs as we put together the tracklisting,” said frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt of the track. “Much like it wasn’t welcome with the others on Beyondless, it’s an anthem for those on the outside looking in.”

Hit play below.

Let loose
We’re really being spoiled with bank holidays this year and there may not be a better place in the city to welcome this year’s May Day than the return of Queen’s Yard Summer Party. Spread across sixteen venues in Hackney Wick, this all-dayer boasts a lineup of over 100 artists including local selectors and collectives alongside established DJs, easing us all into the upcoming festival season with a stellar mix of 4/4 beats. It’s known for being a day that guarantees the perfect mix of good dancing, good drinks and good food.

Queen’s Yard Summer Party is on May 1st, more info here. 

I drink to feel good
Or if you want something more sedate, look no further than Sweeties on the 10th floor of The Standard. Continuing the hotel’s 70s vibes, the new bar claims to have the UK’s first cocktail menu dedicated to “energising adaptogens and nootropics.”

Made with ingredients used in herbal medicine for centuries, they allegedly improve cognitive function and mental wellbeing. So these are cocktails that are good for you? We can’t claim that, but we can tell you that the Pick Me Up (made from a blend of eight mushrooms, brown vodka, cacao and coffee) is delicious. And that’s good enough for us.

Sweeties is located inside The Standard hotel.