History - The Miloco story so far...
Miloco Studios was born through the amalgamation of three top independent London-based studios, Milo Music, The Garden and Orinoco Studios. In recent years the Miloco family tree has grown to incorporate a business model by which Miloco work alongside producers and musicians in representing their own personal studios as commercial ventures. It has led to various other well-known studios across London joining the group, amongst them the world-famous Battery complex in North-West London, West London's Sofa Sound, and Musikbox in Kentish Town. The company has recently expanded across the UK with two residential studios, Fisher Lane in Surrey and Chairworks near Leeds, as well as the famous Liverpool studio The Motor Museum. Miloco has grown overseas, with two luxurious residential studio villas: El Cortijo in South Spain, and Black Rock on the Greek island of Santorini, both now represented by the group. With over 25 years' experience of quality recording under the belt, this unique marriage between Miloco's own facilities and those represented by the group continues to go from strength to strength...
Milo Music was founded in 1984 in the heart of Hoxton in East London. It started life as a mid-range studio but quickly became a well-respected facility catering for the likes of Marc Almond, Tricky, M-People and The Brand New Heavies before growing in size with the building of a pre-production suite. This space doubled-up as a studio, recording artists such as The Divine Comedy and UNKLE, and for many years these two studios were at the heart of the Milo operation. Now known simply as The Square, the original Milo studio has seen many equipment additions over the years. In 2003 a 52-frame Amek 2520 was installed along with ATC SMC200 monitors, the whole room was refurbished and finally acoustically tweaked by Nick Whitaker. Today this room is an ideal haven for bands on a budget thanks to its wide variety of equipment and flexibility as a recording or mixing environment.
In the early 90s Milo acquired another building close to Hoxton Square and set about constructing seven purpose-built programming suites, which have since been known as Hoxton Market. These were self-contained, semi-soundproofed rental rooms designed for artists and producers in need of somewhere to house their equipment long term. To this day Miloco still operate five of these rooms, and they're currently filled by clients including Richard X, Swing Out Sister and Primary 1.
In the period between 1997 and 2000 Milo was the home to Howie B's infamous cult label Pussyfoot. The label recorded the majority of their output at Milo Music, along with many other acts similarly attuned to the unique Pussyfoot ethos, including artists from Ninja Tunes, Soul Jazz, Wall of Sound & Mo Wax.
A little further South from Hoxton on Shoreditch High Street is where The Garden has stood since opening in 1978. A legendary studio with an impressive history all of its own, The Garden was founded by John Foxx of Ultravox fame, and swiftly became a cult studio where the likes of Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Cure and Depeche Mode all came to record. During the 1980s it became the home of Matt Johnson of The The. He liked it so much he bought the place.
Since the mid-1990s Milo Music has run The Garden as a commercial enterprise in partnership with Matt. It added yet another great recording space to the Milo stable. Wonderfully suited to recording live bands, it too has been considerably overhauled through the years. The original Amek 2500 was replaced by an Amek 2520, which in 2003 was replaced with a Neve V3 along with fantastic Boxer monitoring. In 2004 the studio had a facelift which saw all the communal areas and live rooms redecorated, buffed and polished.
Orinoco Studios was built in the mid-1980s in a converted warehouse on Leroy Street off Tower Bridge Road. It quickly made its mark producing Enya's groundbreaking album Watermark, which included the worldwide hit single 'Orinoco Flow'; allegedly named after the studio. It was then at the forefront of the Dance Music explosion of the late 80s, the rise of the indie scene and the subsequent Brit Pop reign of the early to mid 1990s. Oasis' What's The Story Morning Glory was partly recorded and entirely mixed at Orinoco, and the band returned to SE1 to mix the follow up, 1997's Be Here Now, which despite its critcs remains the fastest-selling album in British history. In 1997 Orinoco produced more Number One albums than any other studio in Britain besides Abbey Road.
The year 2000 saw the acquaintance of Milo and Orinoco, when the former purchased the latter and moved into 36 Leroy Street, which remains the company's main HQ to the day. It was this transaction which gave birth to the Miloco name, and provided the group with a greater variety of top-end facilties, none-more-so than the building's top-end Neve VR mix room, now known as The Engine Room. Leroy Street was also home to a large programming suite, The Toyshop, and an abundance of space which would be developed at a later date. Both The Engine Room and Toyshop have acted as a second home to The Chemical Brothers throughout their careers; they have combined both studios in the production of all their records - successive platinums no less. The Chemical Brothers remain one of Miloco's biggest and most regular-visiting clients.
By 2006 Miloco were ready again to set out on the next stage of studio expansion, and over the course of the year opened three more studios under the Miloco brand. The first was The Yard, an SSL mix room - previously Innovation studios - which is based in Highbury, Islington. An ever-popular budget-end mix environment, The Yard underwent a large cosmetic refurb in 2008.
The second addition in 2006 was Musikbox, located in Kentish Town. Owned by producer/DJ Pete Heller, Musikbox has the key attraction of Pete's vast collection of analogue keyboards. It boasts a beautifully designed Recording Architecture room, and in February 2007 was enhanced by a Neve VR60 console.
The third addition of 2006 came in the form of The Pool. With the aid of producer Ben Hillier, this concept room was converted from a massive 1800 square foot storage area at Leroy Street. The sheer size of the room became a musician's dream providing plenty of space to fully spread out, and with Ben's impressive collection of vintage equipment at hand, the studio was in high demand as a non-conventional band tracking room for several years.
Miloco's expansion continued strongly in 2007, when the company ventured into West London for the first time and became representatives of Sofa Sound, a beautiful SSL studio owned by the world-famous producer, Hugh Padgham. Based in Chiswick, Sofa Sound is a top-end SSL mix and tracking room, which since the sad demise of the nearby Eden Studios has become one of the very first choice studios of its kind in West London. With its gloriously daylit control room centred around an SSL G+ console and stacks of top-quality gear, a spacious live room and leisurely recreation facilites, Sofa Sound is proven to be a hugely popular choice for both mixing and tracking.
2007 saw Miloco prevail in the charts once again, with no-less than four Number One albums made in our studios: Arctic Monkeys' Favourite Worst Nightmare, recorded in The Garden; The Chemical Brothers' We Are The Night, mixed in The Engine Room; Kate Nash's Made Of Bricks, tracked in The Pool; and Newton Faulkner's Hand Built By Robots, which was produced by our longterm friend and client Mike Spencer at Miloco. Four of our clients were also nominated for the Mercury Music Prize: Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons, Jamie T and Fionn Regan.
At the end of the year, Miloco launched its new Producer and Engineer Management company, Interface. The Interface roster includes previous Miloco in-house engineers and assistants, who have all now developed into some of the most highly-reputed young engineering talents in the industry.
By the start of 2008, the Miloco group comprised of a wide range of studio facilities from basic long-let suites and affordable mix and tracking rooms, through to some of the most well-reputed studios in the UK and a fresh-faced exciting roster of Producers and Engineers. However the new year would see the company's biggest expansion program to date. At the start of the year, Miloco joined forces with the legendary Merseybeat musician and successful session drummer, Trevor Morais, and began representing his residential studio retreat, El Cortijo, located on the Mediterranean coast of South Spain. The addition of El Cortijo saw Miloco enter both the residential and overseas markets for the very first time.
Back in London, the start of the summer saw the addition of another top-end SSL mix room. Alpha Centauri had been built by musician Steve Rhodes for his own personal use, but he teamed up with Miloco to launch the room as a fully commercial venture. Steve's dedication to creating this dream mix environment is nothing short of remarkable. The dazzling control room is immersed in countless racks of the highest quality outboard gear, which engulfs an immense SSL 4060 G+ console and a monitoring system built around some awesome Dynaudio M4+ custom built active speakers. The studio is classed as one of the very best spec'd mix studios in the whole of the UK, and is located in the historic Battery complex, where Miloco would soon be opening its next new studio...
In August 2008 Miloco collaborated with the internationally-acclaimed producers Flood and Alan Moulder to re-open the legendary Battery studio as Assault & Battery 2. Flood and Alan took over this spectacular tracking space to supplement their mix room, Assault & Battery 1, which is located in the same building, but teamed up with Miloco to run the tracking studio commercially. Since its rebirth in the summer of 2008 the studio has re-established itself as arguably the most complete tracking experience in London, thanks to the incredible vision Flood and Alan have for the room. It combines one of the most atmospheric and expansive recording spaces in the industry with Flood and Alan's unsurpassed collection of backline and outboard gear, which lines up alongside a pristine Neve VR60 console and Quested monitors.
After the passing of a couple of months it was high time for another grand opening. It came in the form of the newly-revitalised Fisher Lane Farm in Surrey, and saw the company venture outside the London city boundaries for the second time that year, and expand further into the residential studio market. After nearly thirty years of hit-making, this magnificent tracking room in the heart of Surrey's beautiful countryside was re-opened by Miloco as the only first class residential recording studio within easy reach of London, thanks to the new additions of two beautifully refurbed country cottages neighbouring the studio.
A new year, a new schedule. The first couple of months in 2009 produced another brand new partnership, this time with Greek music industry figure Kostas Kalimeris, who came to Miloco to launch his stunning, newly-built residential based on the majestic island of Santorini. Black Rock was an addition that bolstered Miloco's overseas residential contingent. The Black Rock experience entails 5-star luxury living with a world class SSL studio, both presented within a beautiful 3-storey Cycladic villa with panoramic views of the Aegean Sea and its world famous sunsets...
The next target was North-West England. Producer/Engineers Mike Crossey and Jim Anderson were now on board the Miloco model, and in partnership with the company ushered in a new era at the legendary Liverpool studio, The Motor Museum, in Spring 2009. This cool and contemporary warehouse studio in Liverpool's fashionable Lark Lane district offers a variety of recording spaces and vast choices of backline gear and microphones. The Motor Museum anchored a new presence for Miloco in the North of England, and one which it expanded shortly after by moving East across the Pennines to Ryan Jarvis' Chairworks residential in Castleford near Leeds. Another phenomenal Northern tracking facility, The Chairworks boasts a whole host of live rooms and booths, and a large SSL-based control room with a terrific outboard collection. Also providing a quirky 5-bedroom house for bands to live in on sessions, the arrival of Chairworks has meant Miloco now have a strong residential standing in North England to run alongside their Southern residential, Fisher Lane.
By the summer of 2009, it was back to Leroy Street in London, when work on a major re-build program on The Engine Room and Pool studios got underway. The Engine Room's control room was given a complete aesthetic and acoustic refurb, while on the other side of a newly-built wall, the live room (re-named The Bridge) was divided into three separate recording areas: 2 booths and a larger main live space. Creating a whole new versatile way of working, The Engine Room & Bridge can now be used as one large studio with control and live room, or two separate facilities: a world class Neve VR mix room; and stand-alone overdub/editing/recording studio.
Through in The Pool a brand new control room and drum booth were built which rise above the expansive recording space. Engineers and producers who prefer a separate control room for recording can now take advantage of the Pool's incredible tracking space from behind closed doors, however the studio has been designed so that it can still be reverted back to its former self - an extreme open recording space incorporating both live and control spaces.
Having also bolstered the number of long-let programming rooms over the last couple of years, Miloco now stands as probably the most expansive studio group in Europe. The group has facilities in Bermondsey, Shoreditch, Hoxton, Highbury, Kentish Town, Hornsey, Willesden Green, Chiswick, Surrey, Liverpool, Leeds, Spain and Santorini with yet more exciting new ventures in the pipeline...