If you were looking for a sonic representation of the past year in its purest form, look no further than the closing track on Kim Gordon’s third solo album. ByeBye25! is an industrial face-melter of the highest order, a discordant, distorted bin-fire of noise where she delivers a free-associative list of what riles up the current US administration: climate change, trauma, they/them, uterus, abortion, and so on. Gordon is in a purple patch and Play Me, her survey of so many topics close to the Nerve’s heart – the demolition of democracy and technocratic end-times fascism – is her best yet. It still has the haunting trap and electronic gnarliness of 2024’s The Collective – which earned two Grammy nominations – but there are melodic krautrock moments and a country-trap effort called Post Empire, too, as well as a track that turns the grubbiness of AI into saucy innuendo (Dirty Tech). Never again will you hear the words “Are you my white-collar service worker?” uttered with such a wry come-hither quiver.

Kate Hutchinson, Nerve music critic

For his Netflix debut, Louis Theroux has returned with his imperturbable style of journalism to take viewers inside the online manosphere. He hangs out in Spain and America with male influencers such as Myron Gaines and Harrison Sullivan (better known as HSTikkyTokky), as well as their fans and the teams around them – when he is allowed to, that is.

The world of these alpha males is easily taken apart by Theroux, whose simple questions nevertheless frazzle the minds of guys who have made bench-pressing in Mallorca their personality. Rather than focusing on the consequences of their content, this fascinating 90-minute documentary exposes the fragility of their ideology and the emptiness of the lives behind the screens.

Michaela Makusha, Nerve editorial assistant

The great American road trip can be an egotistical pursuit, whether a novelist's journey of youthful soul-searching or an infinite scroll of selfies. Not so with US artist Ed Ruscha, whose photographs of drives through urban America, taken from the 1950s to the 1970s, are devoid not only of his own image but of people in general. In Tate Liverpool's exhibition, comprising photographs, paintings, drawings and lithographs, we are invited along on the ride, past abandoned swimming pools and lonely gas stations, to witness a version of the US that is steeped in nostalgia but at the time seemed exhilaratingly futuristic. I found his 1967 series Parking Lots the most intriguing of his works on display. Investigating how the built environment is shaped by car travel, they were captured early on a Sunday morning when there were few vehicles around. The empty concrete structures take on a disconcertingly organic appearance – Dodger Stadium in LA stretches like a newly woken gigantic kraken, while the oil stains on the ground of the May Company’s Laurel Canyon parking lot fan out like enormous palm-leaf fronds.

Laura Davis, writer

Early on 13 May 2021, in a diverse neighbourhood in Glasgow, immigration officers arrived to detain two local men. Using archival footage shot by participants (and some reenactments - look out for Emma Thompson and Kate Dickie), this extraordinary documentary maps what happened next, as neighbours and then the wider community arrived in droves to populate Kenmure Street. In the standoff that followed, the immigration enforcement van was going nowhere – one man even attached himself to its undercarriage. 

This film is an anatomy of that day – one of the most spontaneous and successful episodes of civil resistance in the UK’s recent history – intercut with episodes from Glasgow’s glorious history of protest and interviews with the community. It  won a special jury award at the Sundance festival in January and is best watched on the big screen with an audience.

Jane Ferguson, Nerve co-founder

At once a portrait of the last 15 months of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes’s marriage, and a multivoice depiction of the 1960s Devonshire town where they lived together, Helen Bain’s debut novel The Daffodil Days is an outstanding accomplishment. In August 1961, Plath and Hughes upped sticks from London after buying a thatched house with two and a half acres in North Tawton; their daughter Frieda was a toddler and their son Nicholas was born soon after. Bain combines detailed historical research into the couple with vividly imagined characters, to paint a picture of their Devonshire life as seen through their interactions with the local townsfolk - the GP, the young shopgirl, the poorly neighbour that Hughes has to regularly help lift from the sofa to bed - all told in reverse chronology so that the couple’s departure from the house opens the book. 

It’s a beautifully observed exploration of rural life and human interaction  - you can almost smell the country air and spring blossom. It’s also a quietly feminist reclamation of Plath, portraying her as a witty and engaged woman who found joy in many things, whether keeping bees, playing with her children or attending the local new year’s eve party with her neighbours, rather than the tragic figure of popular myth.

Imogen Carter, co-founder

Julia May Jonas adapts her own 2022 debut novel about M, a frustrated American academic and her obsession with her new younger colleague, Vladimir. She somehow manages to make the quotidian midlife crisis of a sidelined, married woman into a chic horn-fest thanks to stars Rachel Weisz and Leo Woodall as the professor and her boy crush respectively.

It’s mostly happening in M’s head, but her vivid fantasies involve endless wall-based frottage and the almost constant removal of Woodall’s shirt. There’s also excellent support from Mad Men’s John Slattery as her faithless husband and British comedy actor Ellen Robertson as her daughter Sid. Best of all, the eight supremely snackable half-hour episodes will go faster than a packet of Jaffa Cakes you only meant to take two from.

Julia Raeside, writer

THEATRE
Catherine Tate in Oh, Mary!
(Trafalgar theatre, London SW1, 27 April-18 July)

The award-winning actor and comedian takes on the lead role of Mary Todd Lincoln in this Tony award-winning smash hit, which Nerve theatre critic Dorian Lynskey called “relentlessly, implausibly funny”.

FILM
Manchester Film Festival
(Venues across the city, 19-29 March)

Now in its 12th year and still showcasing independent film, programme highlights include Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother with Vicky Krieps and Adam Driver, Couture directed by Alice Winocour and starring Angelina Jolie,  Kit Harrington’s directional debut - the short film Pychopomp (plus Q&A) and three features from Manchester-based film makers.

MUSIC
Jill Scott world tour
(UK dates in September/October)

The three-time Grammy-winning singer, songwriter and actor sets off in June on a world tour for her new album, To Whom This May Concern, including UK dates in Birmingham, Manchester and London in late September and October.

FILM
Trash! BFI season
(BFI Southbank, London, 30 March-30 April)

From John Waters to Russ Meyer, Trash! The Wildest Films You’ve Ever Seen celebrates “those filmmakers and movies that revel in trash cinema’s low-budget, underground weirdness”, shown on the big screen “in all their trashy glory”. It includes a new show with cult-film icon Mink Stole alongside drag performer and film-maker Peaches Christ. Tickets for screenings are on sale to BFI members today, and to the general public on Thursday.