Another room has gone. They always go the same way: quietly, then all at once, then as flats.
This time it’s Angel Studios in Islington, where Adele and Kylie made records and the score for Moulin Rouge was recorded. It closes at the end of the year. In Hollywood, Conway is for sale at $15 million; its owner is 83 and hopes for a buyer who keeps the music going. The Record Plant went earlier this year.
The easy reading is economics: the land is worth more than the sound. True, and dull. The more interesting question is where the work is going instead.
It’s leaving town. Remi Wolf made part of her new record in Joshua Tree. She told Vogue she wanted “to leave LA, but not go too far”, and to be in a house rather than drive to a studio every day.
That isn’t a trend. It’s the oldest instinct in music. You can’t hear yourself where you live. The city is where you’re known: every room comes with a version of you already in it, and your phone knows exactly where you are. Leaving isn’t running away. It’s the only way to find out what you sound like when nobody is expecting anything.
The great studios understood half of this. They built the perfect room and put it in the middle of everything. The room was sacred; the street outside never was.
You can’t hear yourself where you live.
What artists want now is the room and the distance. Somewhere to sleep, eat and work without a commute between them. Somewhere the day isn’t cut into sessions.
So mourn Angel and Conway; they earned it. The records won’t stop being made. They’ll be made further out, by people who had to leave to hear them.
That’s the whole idea. It’s in the name.
Roc Gardner
ESCAPE®, Pioneertown
Sources: Islington Tribune; Los Angeles Times; Vogue.