The Square, located in London’s Hoxton Square, will soon permanently close its doors after 30 years of music recording. Over Christmas 2015 the building at 43-44 Hoxton Square was purchased by a new company, and with Miloco’s lease set to expire in March 2016, the closure was expected.
‘The building was full of wonderfully interesting and cavalier people,’ Miloco MD Nick Young recalls. ‘Film producers, video companies, record companies and tour managers who came and went and told us of their crazy adventures travelling around the world. I started at Milo in about 1989 and for the next ten years I had some of my happiest times there, The Square being at the heart of them.’
The studio was opened in 1984 by Miloco founder, Henry Crallan, as Milo Music in what was then a deserted and dilapidated part of London. Originally a two-studio complex, it was renamed The Square when Milo became Miloco. The venture was a collaboration between Crallan and Queen bass player John Deacon, whom he had been working with as tour manager. Until 2000, The Square was also Miloco HQ.
Through the 1990s, The Square saw a stream of artists, tour managers, record companies, film producers and video companies pass through its doors. These included Marc Almond, Siouxsie and the Banshees, M-People, Bjork, Goldfrapp and Sinead O’Connor. In 2000 VCL video bought the building, prompting Crallan to purchase Orinoco, the complex in Leroy Street which is now houses Miloco HQ, The Pool, The Bridge and The Red Room London. The Square continued, but as a rental property of Miloco’s.
During this time, The Square’s clientele continued to grow with the likes of Jamie T, The Kooks, Plan B, Marina & The Diamonds, Rizzle Kicks, Hurts and Bat For Lashes all recording there. More recently it has been a great workspace for M.I.A., Skepta, The Hunnas, The xx and many more.
‘When I began, Hoxton Square was like the land that time forgot – there was so little life,’ says Young. ‘The area was inhabited by artists and mavericks and some of the most wonderful characters. The 333 Club (then the London Apprentice) on the corner was the largest gay pub in London. The restaurant now opposite the White Cube used to be the Bass Clef, an old jazz club that had a great little analogue studio called Wave on the ground floor that recorded the gigs. Next door to that was a timber yard, and that was it – no other pubs, bars or restaurants.
‘On Saturday nights there were only two pubs open nearby: The Barley Mow and The Bricklayers Arms. It was deserted on weekends and a far cry from the hordes you’d find there today. In fact, it felt so removed from London that we found it very hard to convince clients to go there, for them it was like travelling to Blackheath and the parking was free. How times have changed…
‘Gradually, over the next few years, the bars and restaurants began moving into Hoxton; The Bass Clef became the home of Acid Jazz and The Blue Note an innovative 90s club. We saw and felt the area changing, some may say for the better but at the time we thought it for the worse.’
The Square studio will be relocated, but the building that Crallan built will be no more. ‘Miloco would like to thank every artist, producer, engineer and assistant that worked within The Square’s walls,’ Young says. ‘Without them it would not have become the place we have known, loved, and thrived in for the last 30 years.
‘Miloco will move onwards and upwards. We’ll relocate the studio but unfortunately not in Hoxton. However the spirit is in the people that work there and the music that is made, so it will live on forever, just with a different postcode.’
