The pilot project with Mary Epworth

The first recording made in the studio was with Mary Epworth and her band, over four days in early September 2016, working alongside Tony Visconti and a group of Kingston University music students.

The room already had orchestral percussion set up: timpani, gong, and bass drum. A marimba and a vibraphone came out of storage, and by the end of the week almost everything in the room had been used for something. Tony muted the timpani with jumpers and coats for a deep, tom-like thud, showed the students how to move the pitch of the snare using tape varispeed, and ran signals through the Eventide H3000.

For the backing vocals on a track called Volunteer, everyone piled into the octagon and sang together with Mary conducting.

Two tracks were recorded and roughly mixed over the four days. Excerpts were played at the opening on the 19th.