Solar Powered Music

Hackney may not seem the sunniest of locations, but the Premises Studio’s new recording studio opted for a carbon-neutral approach last year, and this approach is already paying dividends.

Six years ago the future of The Premises in Hackney, East London, was under severe threat due to the ‘Hoxton effect ’™ – soaring property prices followed by huge rent increases. Drastic action was needed to keep the business alive – but enough money was raised to buy out the freehold of the properties and rebuild from scratch. It was decided to go carbon neutral for the new buildings.

Studio A opened in 2006, the first fully professional solar powered recording studio in the UK. It was built using recycled materials where possible and is now powered by 18 photvoltaic panels.

All equipment, including air conditioning, operates on low energy supplies.
Studio Director Nathan Hale says: ‘The idea of a solar powered studio has certainly raised a few eyebrows but it works brilliantly. We did dry runs with bands like Bloc Party and the audio quality was phenomenal. These days more and more music artists are thinking about their carbon footprint, so it was only a matter of time before a fully fledged eco-studio became a reality’.

As part of the rebuild, Studio A was transformed into one of the most advanced recording facilities in the country. With acoustic design by Roger D’Arcy, of Recording Architecture, the four integrated studio areas take up the entire top floor of one building together with a private roof terrace. The main control room is equipped with an SSL AWS900 analogue workstation locked to a Protools HD system, plus ATC 100SL monitoring.

Links
To find out more, go to The Premises Rehearsal and Recording Studios. All in all, it has 14 low cost and environmentally friendly studios to hire for rehearsal & recording. You can see a 60-second film about Studio A at uk/Current.com, ‘Behind the Scenes: ‘Sun-kissed Music’.
For more about Roger D’Arcy, go to Recording Architecture.

Currently in The Premises … Bloc Party, Unkle, James, Ali Love, Klaxons, Polar Bear. In Studio A Absentee’s Dan Michaelson has started recording his solo album with producer Valgeir Sigurðsson. Also in recently: The Horrors plus regulars Hot Chip, Jocelyn Brown, Wiley, Alberta Cross, Hugh Masekela, Simian Mobile Disco, Kate Nash, Spiritualized and Alex Wilson. Congratulations to resident producer James Ford who scored a Mercury double first, with both the Arctic Monkeys and Klaxons albums.

grownupgreen - 30/08/07