Eastcote Studios
“The first time I recorded in Eastcote was in 1993. It immediately felt like I’d been invited to a music world unlike any I’d experienced before. The studio felt like an eccentric’s living room and as Philip showed us around studio 2, I realised that’s exactly what it was. It was a recording studio yes, but more importantly it was one of those magical spaces that instantly makes you want to be creative and leave your pre-conceived ideas behind. I loved that place. I loved it so much that it changed the way I thought of recording forever and it would come to shape my career as a record producer. It was the quirks, the DIY feel, the daylight, the worn out comfy sofas, the instruments… Keyboards everywhere, samplers, guitars, drums all lying around as if someone had left them there with a note saying, ‘please pick us up’.”
- Martin Terefe
“You’ve got to lean over the edge to make a great record. You got to take risks, and it’s no good churning out the same old stuff again and again and again. Things change, people grow up, their taste in music changes and fans come and go. So you’ve got to be able to respond to that, but at the same time recording as an activity hasn’t changed at all really. It’s still a matter of performance.”
- Philip Bagenal
“It’s the whole business of working in a studio. You need a bit of friction: not too much, but a bit. And if you take the friction out, it all stops. People get bored. There’s got to be a bit of tension in the room, and sometimes you have to help out. Stir things up. Create a bit of controversy to get things moving.”
- Philip Bagenal
“Depeche Mode’s ‘Ultra’ was a huge seller and we got great results at Eastcote. Philip tended not to impose, he just left us alone really. It felt like a really, really good home studio rather than a formal structure like how studios were in those days. It was very unintimidating, and I think that was very important. For all artists really, but even more for younger or less experienced artists.”
- Daniel Miller, Mute Records
