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SUBFRANTIC Capitalising on an unusual wealth of time during the lockdown, Subfrantic builds a new rehearsal, filming, and training space. Where London’s urban sprawl meets Kent’s beautiful countryside, the new space provides an environment to inspire and facilitate artists.
Subfrantic’s Steve Davies was supposed to be at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas looking after the British Music Embassy with Production Park when the COVID-19 crisis hit. As one of the first major casualties of the pandemic, the festival was cancelled and in the space of three days, the freelance touring professionals involved in proceedings witnessed their future work vanish – gig after gig, tour after tour. “We had five tours that had just started, all of which were stopped in their tracks. We had big corporate events in advanced planning, which couldn’t go ahead. Optimistically, some shows have been re-scheduled for later in the year, but most have now moved to 2021 or cancelled,” Davies commented, going on to describe the pragmatic nature of touring crew. “That doesn’t mean we’ve been sitting around doing nothing.” Ever the optimist, Davies recalled a small, silver lining of governmentmandated lockdown – the luxury of time. “Lockdown has allowed us to throw ourselves into the building project wholeheartedly in a way that wouldn’t have been possible before.” Although work on the studios had slowed to a snail’s pace in the wake of the lockdown, the Subfrantic team set about building the feature wall in its Live Room as the “centrepiece of the project”. A small, socially distanced group of friends, family, and tradesmen safely spent the best part of three months building an 8m by 6m sound diffuser made up of over 4,500 4in by 4in wooden blocks, each of them individually cut, sanded, painted and fixed to the wall by hand to make a huge pixelated abstract mural. “This was a mammoth task but, without lockdown and the complete evaporation of any work, there was no way that we would have been able to build it,” Davies enthused. “It’s testimony to the determination and belief in the project of those involved that it’s been done, and for that I am very
grateful to everyone who got involved.” Well-equipped with PPE and safe working practises, Subfrantic’s new studio’s primary focus, during this strange time, is to ensure that visitors are safe, and to account for changes in often unclear government guidelines. “We have several options to control the movement of people in the building, so the first thing we do is speak to the client and work out how to manage the human side of their session safely,” Davies said, adding that with outdoor spaces to hang out in and for eating, along with a CCTV system with screens throughout the building, it’s possible to keep a track of who is where easily to avoid too many people being in one space at the same time. “As you might expect, we also have hand sanitiser everywhere!” he exclaimed. “In every bathroom, by every door, by every sink, our sanitisation stations are clearly marked. We also offer people free masks and gloves. We clean everything thoroughly and religiously and that isn’t just the bathrooms, sofas, door handles and the kitchens – it’s the mics, mic stands, consoles and other equipment too.” According to Davies, the design process for the new space involved a slow and organic development of ideas. “It started when some of our clients couldn’t find any rehearsal spaces for the pre-festival season in 2018, and asked if they could use our warehouse, so we set about transforming a part of it into a temporary black box rehearsal space.” The following month saw numerous rehearsals and video or photo shoots, during which the team watched how different guests used spaces in the warehouse as mix rooms, dressing rooms and green rooms. After that followed a lengthy research phase where Davies and the team asked a lot of people what they wanted from a rehearsal facility. “Most people felt unlimited free parking with no traffic wardens waiting to pounce 20
