Which brings us to the Spiritland story. Not exactly newbies to the ‘music café’ concept, Spiritland has hung its shingle on no fewer than four London venues. An initial presence at Merchant’s Tavern in Shoreditch was followed by establishments in King’s Cross and on the Southbank. The King’s Cross bar is still open and has developed a steady customer base targeted more on the club crowd, but in their latest venture, a ‘pop-up’ at the Barbican, running until next July, they might just have found their spirit-ual home.
For those who don’t know, the Barbican is a modernist development with, at its heart, an extensive performing arts centre. Located in central London, wedged between Smithfield Market and Liverpool Street and opened in 1982, its proudly brutalist architecture, soaring apartment blocks, stunning city views and impenetrable maze of elevated walkways has generated a love/hate relationship with residents, locals and visitors alike. But what’s not in dispute is its thriving programme of arts and cultural activities: with classical and contemporary concerts, a theatre that hosts both plays and dance, film screenings, gallery spaces, restaurants and a library, it offers a dazzling array of events and opportunities. It is home to both the London and the BBC Symphony Orchestras and has also accommodated the Royal Shakespeare Company (and Simon Rattle’s towering ego). And, for the time being, it’s home to Spiritland too…
A temporary residency, inhabiting a currently empty restaurant/bar space, Spiritland has worked with regular collaborators Definitive Audio (the Nottingham, UK-based retail arm of Living Voice, not the Seattle dealership) to create a superior listening experience, akin but far from identical to the Kissa blueprint. For starters, this is not a single-use space. It’s used for a host of different musical and artistic purposes, from pre-show or pre-concert presentations to club-nights, DJ sets to artist interviews to themed listening. In practice, it’s a case of (almost) anything goes, with a mix of private and public events drawing on the entirety of the Barbican’s artistic community. You need to organize a book launch or introduce the latest, hot sound track? You want to hear Caroline Shaw talking about the many different strands of her musical output? A DJ set? How about directors and actors talking about a play or production? Dancers, film critics or commentators discussing works: Sir Antonio Pappano discussing the upcoming LSO season. The Spiritland Barbican space can (and has to) do it all – but that versatility has demanded some serious planning and flexibility, not least from the installed system.
Ahhh… the system. Yes, the context is all very interesting, but let’s be real; the reason most of us (as opposed to most of the Spiritland visitors) are reading this article is the system itself. It’s all very well promising a superior musical experience, but as most hi-fi shows so ably demonstrate, delivering it is quite another matter. With so many conflicting demands, it should come as no surprise that the system installed by Definitive Audio’s Kevin Scott is not one, but three separate systems that share a single (but far from ordinary) set of speakers.
Making Noise – The Living Voice R252
As the common factor, the speakers are not only the most sensible but arguably the most visually obvious place to start. One look at the pictures will tell you that the Living Voice R252 strays far from the conventional mould when it comes to current trends in high-end loudspeakers. Forget tall, vertical arrays, curvy, sculpted cabinet walls or exotic, polymer-based cabinet materials. In fact, in aesthetic terms, the R252s are the most obvious link to the Kissa bar/retro vibe, with shades of the big JBL or Tannoy systems so popular in the Home-islands. However, appearances are, in this case deceptive and the R252 is a logical development of the Living Voice reflex-loaded loudspeaker line. The look might be dominated by the wide, almost square baffle with its side-by-side 380mm/15” woofers, but the drivers and thinking are a direct outgrowth of the more conventional two-way R80 with its familiar MTM baffle layout.
