Tag: sound design

Step Into Sound at Our New Spotify Listening Lounge in London

How you listen can shape what you hear. That’s the idea behind the new Spotify Listening Lounge, an acoustic space at our London headquarters purpose-built for deeper, intentional listening.

Created to showcase Spotify’s lossless audio offering, the Listening Lounge will host year-round programming for artists’ top Spotify Premium fans, opening up intimate experiences around presence, community, and sound.

At the center of the experience is a bespoke Spotify sound system built and engineered by Friendly Pressure, the London-based loudspeaker design studio founded by Shivas Howard-Brown. The surrounding environment was designed in collaboration with Cake Architecture.

Spotify opened the doors this week with an event hosted by U.K. artists Joy Crookes, Nao, and Yazmin Lacey, who shared tracks that have inspired and shaped them, with guests listening to each one in full.

“The Listening Lounge is where technology, craftsmanship, and culture align,” said Billie Baier, Co-Head of Marketing, Spotify U.K. & Ireland. “By bringing lossless audio into this environment, we’re demonstrating the full potential of streaming and fostering a deeper connection between fans and the music they love.”

When sound shapes the space

Guests enter from the streets of central London into a space defined by warm lighting, slate floors, and steel details. From there, the main room uses a palette of rich browns and tactile materials that recede into the background, keeping the focus on the listening experience.

 

New Spotify Original Podcast From Sound Up Alum Kacie Willis Pushes the Bounds of Creativity and Anonymity

It’s rare for two people to approach the creative process in the same manner. In the new podcast You Heard Me Write, listeners get a peek behind the curtain to hear how different sound designers bring to life the words of writers in an entirely unique way. The show, hosted by Sound Up 2019 participant Kacie Willis, is the latest podcast to come out of Spotify’s Sound Up program, which aims to empower the next generation of podcasters from underrepresented backgrounds through education, workshops, and support.

The first season of You Heard Me Write explores 30 original pieces of prose, music, and sound design. Each episode features artists collaborating on a multimedia group project without having any knowledge about the identities of their counterparts. Only after the project is done are the artists introduced to one another: in a roundtable discussion where they explore the roles of creativity, anonymity, and the power of connection between people from different walks of life. 

For the Record sat down with Kacie to learn more about the podcast.