Ex Libras

Anyone who's followed Ex Libras' exploits making "The Shed" on their blog,Guerilla Movements, must have been impressed by their determination. Using their 3 meagre salaries they've assembled a creative space they can use whenever they want at no extra cost. It's there that I had agreed to meet them.

Making the long journey across London, I have another chance to listen to their debut album, "Suite(s)" and it strikes me just how well suited it is to commuting. As I walk through the hectic crowds then sit among the faceless passengers on the tube it reminds me of how lonely life in London can be surrounded by thousands of people. Ex Libras' blend of guitar/synth electronica somehow captures this perfectly. After listening, you're left with a feeling of emptiness, but that's no criticism. It's like looking out over a desert plain as it disappears into the horizon. The album can be hard to dip into, but when taken in one sitting the experience can be quite euphoric, albeit tinged with a heavy dose of melancholy.

Ex Libras are Amit Sharma (guitar and vocals), Kieran Nagi (keyboards) and Ross Kenning (beat maker and bass guitar). Their live performances are something to behold. All 3 push the capabilities of their instruments to the limit of what can be achieved in a live setting, creating vast soundscapes with an array of samplers and drum sequencers. There are no pre-recorded loops: everything is sampled live on stage and then activated by triggers throughout the set. The crowd soon becomes completely submerged by Amit's sweeping angelic vocals, while Ross and Kieran create an intricate backdrop of heavy beats and brooding synthesizer.

When I meet Ross, my guide for the evening, he asks, "You don't have a problem wearing a blindfold on the way to the shed, do you? Only one other person has ever seen our studio".

I laugh, but I'm not entirely sure whether he's kidding or not.

Article By Ed Williams.

So what prompted you to build your own recording space?

Amit: The death of Riot Club. It was a rehearsal studio in Hounslow run by a guy named Lee Farrow. The majority of the area's bands passed through there at one point or another. It had been running for ten years, but we only got together in the last two months before it closed down, leaving us wondering how the hell we were going to rehearse - not in a desperate way, we were just tired of having to pack up our gear and hump it across town, paying £60 to £80 for four hours rehearsal. It was Kieran and Ross who came up with the idea.

Ross: Kieran suggested this shed that he knew about. We'd had a bit to drink and at the time it all seemed a bit improbable - the place was a state.

Kieran: The only other places we tried were a nightmare to get to due to the amount of equipment we used, so we took some time to persuade the owners and in the end the owners were quite happy to have a chance to get rid of all the crap that had built up in there over the years.

It must have been quite a job.

Ross: Initially when we had a look at the place it was almost like . . . when we knew how much had to be done - it took about six months in total, would you say?

Kieran: Six months on and off.

Ross: Yeah, on and off. We did most of the work on Sundays, weekday evenings, sometimes we were hungover but we just thought "get in there, do it". Once it started it was like a snowball effect. I don't think any of us would have put in that much money and time for something that wasn't going to happen.

Kieran: We just threw ourselves in at the deep end. We didn't know that much about building a studio, so at work all three of us would be looking up soundproofing instructions, tips on how to dissipate sound. Basically, this is a just wooden shed so it reverberates every single part of the wooden structure. We needed to find a way to build something inside, like an internal room.

Ross: Apart from the floor there's a gap in between this room and the external walls, so it's a room within a room. Everything's hanging from these resilient bars, which separate the external from the internal structure. Using that theory we've managed to create some really good quality sound-proofing.

I'm quite impressed - you're right in the flight path, and I could barely hear the plane that just flew over.

Kieran: The actual physical size of the shed is a lot bigger than what you can see now. There's about 5 inches from each wall completely insulated.

Originally it belonged to a railway enthusiast who built the whole shed around his model railways, so there used to be boards and trains all over the place. It's quite nice to carry on the shed's use for something else - he was passionate about railways, we're passionate about this so it's nice to not just be using the place as a storage facility.