In 1990s London, rave was king of the night, and Turnmill was the first club to get a 24-hour operation license. The warehouse operation became a must-attend hotspot for fashionable nightcrawlers of the dancing kind. Themed nights with names including Xanadu and Trade took over its nonstop programming, filling the foggy walls with revelers and electronic grooves no matter the hour.
In 2008, Turnmill was closed for good. Its lease had expired and would not be renewed. The warehouse was destroyed and turned into an office building, but its legacy lives on in the hearts of London’s artists and musicians, including Maribou State‘s Chris Davids and Liam Ivory.
“Turnmills was where we first experienced electronic music in a club setting,” Ivory is quoted in a press release. “It’s a totally different and transformative listening experience and that communal spirit, atmosphere and feeling has inspired the way we’ve made music. Clubs are such important hubs for music discovery, especially of songs that you might have overlooked in a different setting. Partly through the feeling in the room and also through the memories attached to the records you hear.”
The electronic duo breaks a three-year silence with a new song inspired by and named after the iconic club. It’s a chill groove that attempts to capture the feeling the friends once felt dancing all night in its hallowed spaces.
“We wrote ‘Turnmills’ the day after a Dama Dama label party at the East London club Shapes (shut down in 2016),” Maribou State’s Chris is quoted. “Our studio is housed in the same building actually … The vibe of the night brought back memories of our formative clubbing experiences, and that energy ended up being channeled straight back into the studio the next day.”
“Turnmills” is out now on Counter Records, the first bit of new music to follow Maribou State’s breakout debut album Portraits. The duo will make appearances at summer festivals Sonar, Parklife, Roskilde, and Flying Lotus’s All Points East Festival. Listen to “Turnmills” below.