PSFK Talks to fabric’s Cameron Leslie

We’ve always appreciated London’s fabric, not only for their innovative musical lineups and overall curation, but also for the rigorous attention to detail the staff puts into the entire experience. This past weekend, the team behind fabric launched a new, highly-anticipated London venue called matter. We spoke with Cameron Leslie, fabric’s Managing Director and a key architect of the new venue (along with owner Keith Reilly) to discuss the overall vision, creative collaboration with Pentagram, and their obsessive quest for perfect sound.

Explain the rationale and vision behind matter.

Our intention was to build a music venue – it might seem like splitting hairs but fabric is and always will be a club, with matter we’ve looked to design and create a space that can showcase live music and other events, some of which will include clubnights.
…[We want to] put on a great show, on an incredible sound system, in an amazing environment with a team who cares and people will want to come – its not rocket science.

Describe some of the innovation that went into the club’s design.

One of the things that really attracted Keith (Reilly) and I to this project was the opportunity to design the whole building from the first brick entirely as we wanted it.  A new build space as a music venue is practically unheard of, as such the design is totally geared towards sound.  The building is completely sound proofed to 155 dB – our acoustic consultant tried to put this in layman’s terms for my simple brain, apparently a harrier jump jet could take of on the dance floor and you couldn’t hear it outside.

General:
In terms of innovation we started with a blank piece of paper and literally went through every thing from the first moment people turn up to the point they leave, I guess even when they walk through their front doors at home if you want to count our taxi service, SafeTrip.
The sole intention behind every single interaction between our staff, the building and by this I mean the toilets or the bar and the customer is to get them back out onto the floor or in front of the stage – it isn’t to entertain them with anything other than the core offering.

…As such we’ve looked at ideas such as an electronic retrieval system in the cloakroom – contrary to what some people think about it being this gigantic conveyor belt of jackets (which I can tell you wouldn’t work) it’s a simple process where at the end of the night when everyone leaves at once and a queue forms to get coats back, every ticket will have a 2-d bar code on it – a member of our cloakroom team then walks the queue scanning the tickets one after another.  These numbers will come up sequentially on a screen in the back of the cloakroom, another cloakroom team will retrieve these coats in order and put them on a rail at the front so when the individual in question gets to the front their coat is waiting.  A quick simple, and effective solution to a common and frustrating problem.

Sound:
Different buildings have different challenges for sound– the sheer height of our amphitheatre style space meant there was a horrendous 3-second delay compared to our sub-0.75 second position at fabric.  As such the whole ceiling is coated in this deep papier maché style material which was sprayed on to deaden the sound.  It’s incredible how little reverb there is now – a simple clap of the hands is just killed immediately, no echo whatsoever.

…In 1999 at fabric we introduced the BodySonic floor and while it’s still a fantastic element of the venue we know from experience and the development of technology that we could do something a little bit more advanced this time round; as such the BodyKinetic floor is the fruits of that research and development.

It’s a 110 m² bass driven floor with a killer kick.  The sprung wooden floor and substructure is totally isolated (ie its free floating over a 300 cm void) so the energy delivered from the bass ‘punch’ from the 80 piston transducers within the floor fires straight up through the body.  Coupled with the 5.1 surround sound you’ve got the complete sound experience, all around and inside you.

It’s certainly not about brute volume but controlled, ferocious power and a breadth of quality across the sound spectrum we hope will be unparalleled in a venue of this type anywhere in the World…I hope our reputation towards sound precedes us, so to this extent we’re not doing anything we haven’t done or wanted to do at fabric – it’s the same obsessive dedication to sound.

Lighting and Visuals:
What we are doing with matter that we haven’t done at fabric and where the genuine innovation lies is the lighting and visuals.  At fabric we’ve taken an approach on the lighting of relative sensory deprivation, minimal and stripped back.
At matter we want to equalise the focus on sound and light and the way it’s applied.  We’ve worked closely with the guys from Pixel Addicts to create an installation that’s intended to take the show beyond the stage or booth.

…Quite simply we will have the facility to project video content from 12 different sources simultaneously and undistorted across all surfaces within the venue via the process of Architectural Video Mapping, allowing us to completely engulf people in a 360° visual experience.   What we certainly don’t intend to do is overload people with a garish display of psychedelia.

Discuss the collaboration with Pentagram from the earliest conceptual stages.

Keith and I were both massive fans of William Russell so he was an obvious choice for our architectural shortlist.  We loved his approach to design and use of concrete, and it was our desire that the project that was be a temple of the stuff.  The tendering process was such a one sided affair that the decision was made for us.  We wanted to work with him/Pentagram and fortunately for us they wanted to work with us.
One of the attractions of Pentagram was the cross-disciplinary skill by which architect William Russell and fellow partner graphic designer Angus Hyland were able to take a holistic approach to both the interior and visual identity.
The name and visual identity of the venue compliment the stark brutalism of the interior architecture. The logo combines the matter signature with a flexible “frame” based around the harmonious proportions of the ‘golden section’.
Working with Pentagram has been a pleasure from beginning to end – they really have been an inspiration to me personally and we’ve built up a creative love affair that I hope will stretch on beyond this project.