In France, this time of year is known as la morte-saison: the dead season. Nothing’s happening: it’s too hot. Everybody’s off to the beach. So be thankful you live in the west of Scotland, then, because we have literally no such thing. While the rest of Europe slumbers, you have the chance to get out there and enjoy a rich array of parties at venues across the city.

One of the weekend’s biggest takes place at the Art School on Saturday, when the annual Free Pride festival takes over the venue. An alternative to the mainstream Pride parade, which still brims with more colour, culture and life than some of the other marches that clog up our thoroughfares during the summer, Free Pride positions itself as a radical, inclusive day of events based around celebrating, learning, protest and unifying to imagine and build something better. After a packed day of talks and workshops, DJs Letitia Pleiades, Bella Baxter and Deep Brandy Album Cuts spin a varied mix of dancehall, top-40 R&B, seminal noughties hip-hop and sleazy bedroom jams.

For an alternative to the alternative check out the Weirdo Warehouse Pride Carnival Party, which takes over the Carnival Arts Centre on Albion Street after Saturday’s march. With six DJs (including Shoot Your Shot’s Cutmaster Cosmo and a set from local legend Hush going back-to-back with Sunshower), live bands and drag performances, it’s on until 4am and is BYOB.

I am, of course, aware that that kind of thing isn’t for everyone and that some nights, only banging mainstream pop vibes will cut it. So if that’s how you’re feeling, the O2 ABC is where it’s at: We Love Pop’s Disco Love afterparty kicks off at 11pm and has the Pretty Ugly DJs spinning Studio 54 disco and more modern disc-faux records all night.

• Free Pride, Saturday, The Art School, 10pm – 3am, free

• Weirdo Warehouse, Saturday, Carnival Arts Centre, 10pm – 4am, £8

• Disco Love: We Love Pop’s Pride Afterparty, Saturday, O2 ABC, 11pm – 3am, £7

Butch

Local promoters BASSment make the step up to the Sub Club tonight with their first ever party in the Jamaica Street venue. Their guest is a goodie: Mainz's DJ Butch, who holds down a residency at Berlin's legendary club Watergate and is beloved by techno and house heads everywhere.

“I like to make people dance and have fun,” he says - and thank goodness, because that is frankly the least that I expect from a DJ I’ve paid to see. His advice for anyone going along tonight? “You must switch off the real world and switch off the mind,” he says. “I will do the rest.”

Brighton’s Leon Vynehall is next to take on the famous club, as he heads up Thunder Disco’s Friday night lineup. With their party pants pressed and ready for action, the local crew are back in their spiritual home. Vynehall’s transcendent grooves run the gauntlet from orchestral compositions to post-punk and more familiar house, funk and techno sounds, and it’s hard to put it more succinctly than Thunder Disco themselves, who have declared that “this is gonna be beautiful.”

The big-hitters keep on coming, with a back-to-basics night at Subculture on Saturday featuring resident Jasper James. James isn’t long back from partying with Ronaldo (the real Ronaldo) after his recent set on the terrace at Ibiza’s DC-10: the Scottish DJ tweeted a picture of himself in a Celtic top embracing the Brazilian World Cup winner just a couple of weeks after our very own Jackmaster spotted him in the crowd at the same venue. Has the former Real Madrid man picked up a taste for classically-house-minded Glaswegian selectors on his Ibizan travels? Only one way to find out: get down here on Saturday night and see if you can find him by the booth.

• BASSment with Butch, tonight, Sub Club, 11pm – 3am, £10

• Thunder Disco with Leon Vynehall, tomorrow, Sub Club, 11pm – 3am, £10

• Subculture with Jasper James, Saturday, Sub Club, 11pm – 3am, £10

Highlife

There are some transcendental experiences that make you stop and re-evaluate everything you think you know about music. For Highlife residents Andrew and Auntie Flo, it happened last summer at the Ritual Nomade festival, in a forest outside Cologne. The festival “plays beautiful, trance-inducing music,” said the duo. “We were amazed to witness a packed festival crowd zoning out to this super slow and immersive music at 4am peak time.”

They welcome one of the festival’s main protagonists, the Brazilian DJ Pigmalião, to their regular night at the Art School tomorrow night to try to recreate that special vibe they experienced last year. There’s also a brand new sun-themed light show, so bring your shades and get ready to bliss out.

In a totally-different-but-also-kind-of-complementary vein, Nightwave celebrates four years of running her Nightrave at La Cheetah with a special all-night set on Saturday. It’s the first time the Glasgow-based DJ has played an all-nighter in her near 20-year career, so prepare for a journey through acid, electro, ghetto house and booty.

• Highlife: Sun Ritual, tomorrow, The Art School, 11pm – 3am, £5

• Nightrave with Nightwave, Saturday, La Cheetah, 11pm – 3am, £3