Want to see content from United States of America

Continue
FOLD
© Martin Eito
Nightlife
"A house for beautiful souls": How FOLD created a new clubbing community
With a 24-hour license and adventurous programming, FOLD is an East London bastion of grassroots clubbing. A year since opening, the team reflect on how they built this institution from the ground up.
Written by Josie Roberts
9 min readPublished on
Stephenson Street is a quiet and unassuming road on a Canning Town industrial estate, where Canary Wharf's skyscrapers loom in the distance one way, and residential life is sliced off by DLR tracks the other. There's a somewhat dislocated feel to it and, bar a long-running Afrobeat hotspot thumping away nearby, there's not been much else by way of nightlife in this little pocket of the East End.
That was until 2018 when an old printers, nestled between a skip hire and a building materials supplier, caught the attention of Seb Glover and Lasha Jorjoliani, the former Shapes owner and producer/DJ respectively. They bought the spacious, boxy building that summer, replaced paper and rubbish with a Function One sound system and a vast wall of LEDs, and carved out a dark, stripped-back dancefloor in the space that spilled out in front.
A 24-hour license was approved by Newham Council, and on August 18 they christened the club FOLD and opened to the public with a 24-hour event featuring a who’s who of the city’s underground parties and collectives. The foundations for something pretty special were in place – all they needed next was to fulfil it.
An aerial view of London's new industrial nightclub, FOLD
An aerial view of London's new industrial nightclub, FOLD© FOLD
FOLD’s journey since has been one characterised by diligence, a project built by the creative hearts and hardworking hands of the small team around it. This only begins with their bookings, which have been adventurous since the start; at few other London clubs could you find Danny L Harle’s happy hardcore unit H5rlecore, electroclash duo Miss Kittin & the Hacker, and NYC techno powerhouse The Bunker roll through during their opening few months.
It seeps further into their marathon parties, the studios open for artists to use during the week, and the policies in place to keep the dancefloor a safe, inclusive space on the weekend. But above all, it comes down to the community they’ve built in the space of a year, transforming this pocket of Canning Town into a living, breathing and continually evolving ecosystem. Lasha, the club's resident, puts it best: "FOLD is a shelter, a house for many beautiful souls so that they can come find their place."
To celebrate its first birthday, FOLD have shared a specially-commissioned, hand-drawn video celebrating all the artists who have played there over the past 12 months – soundtracked by its very own Lasha, aka Voicedrone. Watch it exclusively in the player below, then scroll down as Seb, Lasha and marketing director David Conde reflect on how they nurtured a new community for clubbers – and how they continuously endeavour to push nightlife and art forward.
What was it that drew you to the site in Canning Town?
Seb Glover: It was a case of looking at a map and looking at where was accessible, far away enough from residents to be able to get a license, industrial so that we could create a brand new space, and somewhere that was affordable enough to be able to run such a project.
I think it was the right timing more than anything, coming to an area as the first licensed premises of our ilk, and I think they were trying to attract more artists to the area. They [Newham Council] definitely really appreciate the project that we’ve been bringing here
FOLD itself is a club run by artists. Has that helped you all to find a common goal with the club, and is why it has been successful, rather than coming in with a business mind?
Seb: All our decisions have been creatively led, and very much from the heart. We took a big risk early on by following that approach because we were putting on more challenging line-ups. We weren’t just booking the names by throwing money at them to try and attract a crowd.
But that has really shown its worth now, and we’ve built a very loyal and diverse following who really trust in us and trust in the lineups that we’ve put out there. For example we started our Sunday unFOLD parties which are all local artists, and we’re getting very solid crowds coming every time. It’s probably the most special show we have on, because yeah, it’s our crowd.
FOLD are running a regular series of Sunday parties, UNFOLD
FOLD are running a regular series of Sunday parties, UNFOLD© James Newmarch
Was this something that influenced your decisions in designing the space, too? It makes me think of the experience of being on the dancefloor, where the ‘no photos’ policy and dark lighting all help to create a sense of anonymity and togetherness.
Seb: The point with the photo ban was to really help people facilitate connection, being present and mindful in the moment. And also with the windows not being fully blackout so you can see people in the morning, it’s not too bright but you can have this connection – like the unFOLD party, where everyone is dancing in a circle around the DJ so you’re really seeing how people react.
Our core crowd is very open-mined; we have a strong following from the LGBTQ community which sets a bar for openness, a sense of free expression
What have conversations with this core crowd been like, and what feedback have you been getting from them about what FOLD represents in London?
Lasha Jorjoliani: Well for them, FOLD has been like home from the day we opened our doors. Every time we finish the Sunday sessions, everybody is saying it’s getting more and more under their skin. It becomes such a casual and natural thing to do on Sunday – you wake up, you brush your teeth, you come to FOLD.
FOLD is a shelter, a house for many beautiful souls so that they can come find their place
Lasha Jorjoliani aka Voicedrone
Seb: Someone commented as if it’s a church or a temple, a real kind of replacement for what would be the role of that kind of institution, bringing this uplift and cathartic experience, and a sense of togetherness. And with the extended license you really get a sense of this journey. We start off, it’s dark, you’re in the deep end and if you stay with the journey, you leave on a completely different plane as to when you arrived. You leave feeling inspired and elevated.
That feels especially applicable to some of your 24-hour parties that give you space to embark on that kind of journey. What have been some of the challenges of putting on events of that scale?
Lasha: Obviously you could imagine how much production it takes to put on a 24-hour event. Throughout the whole Ilian Tape event, we had more than 1,200 people coming and going, and obviously 24 hours is like three different eight-hour shifts.
I think the biggest challenge is that normally in London people go to see the main headliners, but we are trying to break this rule because there’s so much talent that you can discover. That’s why we never announce the set times on 24 hours; people don’t know who’s playing what time, so they come and see the whole experience.
How did you find your residents?
David Conde: It’s all friends of friends, really. And then Lasha has a very clear idea of what the sound is for FOLD, so I think it comes naturally. It’s very organic, everything that happens here. And it’s not only about the quality of the music, but you have to have that persona, that mentality, that approach towards what we do, that motive. So when you meet someone that has all that, that is when the magic happens and they become residents.
Sunlight filters through the shutters and onto the dancefloor
Sunlight filters through the shutters and onto the dancefloor© Martin Eito
What is the sound of FOLD?
Lasha: I think FOLD is a rave space, like tribal Renaissance... [laughs]
Seb: With a strong flavour of amen breaks.
Is the rest of the venue run from those in-house?
David: We’re all creatives, we don’t really outsource anything. We have fantastic producers here, like Lasha, and if we need designers or anything we always keep it in the family. It goes back as well to the non-headliner kind of approach. We don’t wanna just look for the coolest graphic designer out there at the moment, or find someone very popular that makes songs and is gonna make a boom you know?
A year later, what are you still tweaking? How is the space still evolving?
Lasha: Every week we just change some layouts, replace things. It constantly looks like a construction site – we’re always building something, we’re always making something. We recently improved acoustics inside the room, and built motorised shutters for the windows that will be controlled by a sound engineer
Seb: There are many elements of FOLD that we’re about to launch – things top secret, other things less so. We have a label coming, we’re pushing our FOLD live which is our broadcast of live electronic performances on a regular basis, but yeah we have some things we’re building right now which the world will know about soon.
Really this year for us is the prequel. We’re not really even fully open as of yet, and it’s been going better than anything we could have ever expected. But from December it’ll be the next chapter of FOLD which is something we’re really excited about.
What have been some of the biggest challenges you’ve encountered over the past year?
Lasha: Lack of sleep – that has been the biggest challenge so far. Literally all week we prepare for the weekend, then obviously the weekend comes and we don’t sleep.
To be honest, the no photo policy has been quite a big challenge because people don’t respect it – because people aren't used to it. If you come down and see me on a night you’ll see me grabbing people's phones like, ‘c’mon, respect the place’.
David: It’s nice as well because our communities are starting to manage each other. So you can see random people in the dancefloor telling other people, ‘hey, you can’t take pictures and stuff’, but it’s always in a very natural way.
What impact do you think FOLD has had in London? What makes it unique?
Lasha: I think the past few years, people in London have lost a place where they’re going to every weekend. For all of us, Shapes was home, and when it got shut we were kind of left homeless, and that was probably one of these things that made us make the space better and want to create something unique. I think FOLD is unique because we can see people want to be here every weekend. We’re bringing back what this city was at its best.
Coming up at FOLD: Natural Selection and Central Processing Unit join forces with a mammoth lineup on November 9, before the next unFOLD Sunday session the day after. Then Cartulis Day celebrate their 10th anniversary on November 15, Sansibar make their live UK debut on November 22, and Gabber Eleganza premieres a new audiovisual show on November 30.
For tickets and the full upcoming programme of events, click here.
Nightlife
Clubbing