What happened at Monastic Studios?
On August 9, 2026, Damian Lazarus said a lightning bolt struck Monastic Studios, his custom-built studio in a forest above Tuscany's Mugello mountains, and set off a fire that tore through the room. He chose to share the news himself rather than let it leak, calling the loss a major part of his life and history. Per We Rave You, the strike hit without warning during a summer storm, and by the time the fire burned out, the interior he had spent a decade shaping was gone.
Why is the building still standing?
Lazarus had installed fire-resistant soundproofing, originally meant to keep sound from leaving the room. The irony is that it also kept the fire from leaving. Starved of oxygen, the blaze suffocated itself before it could take everything, and the building's frame survived. The interior, the gear, the wiring, years of setup, did not have the same luck.
What did this room mean to his career?
It's where Lazarus recorded Magickal, his 2020 album, and where a significant amount of his catalogue over the past decade came together. A room like that isn't just equipment: it's years of learning how a specific space responds, of building a working tool around your own habits. Lazarus founded Crosstown Rebels in 2003, a label that helped launch Maceo Plex, Jamie Jones and Francesca Lombardo, and has run Day Zero since 2012, a festival born in Tulum around the end of the Mayan calendar and since expanded to Mexico and Masada.
Did the fire touch any unreleased music?
No. Lazarus says his next single survived untouched and is still on track for release this year, even though the room it was largely made in no longer exists.
"The barn has burned down. Now I can see the moon."
