For six years, Total Refreshment Centre made a huge impact on this decade’s London’s Jazz movement. Following its closure as a venue in 2018 – it continues as a recording studio – music journalist and broadcaster Emma Warren has penned a book; ‘Make Some Space: Tuning Into Total Refreshment Centre‘.

To mark its launch and the monumental significance of TRC that has been felt by music communities around the world, Tina Edwards invites three special guests onto the podcast. Talking about UK Jazz, ‘musicking’ and the importance of physical spaces are TRC founder Alexis Blondel, artist Alabaster De Plume and ‘Make Some Space’ author, Emma Warren.

If you haven’t heard of TRC, on Foulden Road in North London, you can imagine a venue ‘hidden’ with various entrances. If you couldn’t locate the black front door, subtly stencilled with ‘TRC’ amongst terraced houses, then you might have found the entrance through the petrol station. It was a labyrinth.

Once inside the labyrinth, you could find Jazz artists such as Shabaka Hutchings or Makaya McCraven hanging out, DJs like Gilles Peterson and Louie Vega playing DJ sets for less than a hundred dancing fans, or people singing with Alabaster De Plume in one of his Peach nights, between bites of of ethiopian dishes from the vegan pop-up.

Order the book ‘‘Make Some Space: Tuning Into Total Refreshment Centre’ by Emma Warren, available now: http://testpressing.org/2019/03/emma-warren-make-some-space-tuning-into-total-refreshment-centre/

Check out some of the albums that have been recorded at TRC:

The Comet Is Coming ‘Channel the Spirits’:
https://thecometiscoming.bandcamp.com/album/channel-the-spirits

Alabaster De Plume ‘The Corner of a Sphere’:
https://alabasterdeplume.bandcamp.com/album/the-corner-of-a-sphere-2018

Makaya McCraven ‘CHICAGOxLONDON mixtape’:
https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/where-we-come-from-chicagoxlondon-mixtape

Thanks to Entale for having us to record in your studios. We like you.

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