What exactly is radial?
Ten87 Studios has opened radial at 39b Markfield Road in Tottenham, on the plot that housed the beloved Five Miles and, later, MOKO, the listening bar run by Rhythm Section's Bradley Zero and Nathanael Williams. The room holds 250 standing or 80 seated, wrapped in flexible Japanese-style loungers instead of the usual raised booths. radial bills itself as "a sound-led listening space for music, community and culture," and it enforces a no-phone, no-photography policy on the floor.
"We believe music performance should be enjoyed in the moment."
Why does the sound system matter?
The centerpiece is a custom 10-point rig designed by Nick Whitaker, the acoustic engineer behind Plastic People, the Shoreditch dubstep and bass institution whose sound system is still cited as a reference more than a decade after it closed. Whitaker's build for radial runs Martin Audio and Neumann hardware, tuned for this specific room rather than scaled down from something bigger. That's a different bet than most new openings make: spend on the thing punters can't see, in a landscape where phone-lit crowds and Instagrammable production usually come first.
Who built it, and why Tottenham?
Ten87 Studios, the network behind radial, already runs more than 60 recording spaces across three Tottenham sites and counts Fontaines D.C., Wolf Alice and Sherelle among the acts who've booked in. Founders Rob Burn and Romy Quinnen built radial as the live stage to go with that studio infrastructure, with SODA Studio designing the room around a circular motif borrowed from Olafur Eliasson's "The Weather Project" installation, which gives the venue its name. Early programming leans on club and DJ sets from Elena Colombi, Mixtress and L-VIS 1990, alongside talks, workshops and sound-based wellness sessions. Arts Council England's Supporting Grassroots Music scheme part-funded the build, at a moment when the UK has been losing small venues faster than it opens new ones.
