Published
Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 16:45
- Founded by Basic Channel's Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald, the historic studio must leave its Kreuzberg premises by October 2023.
Dubplates & Mastering (D&M), the historic cutting house and audio mastering studio in Berlin, is being forced to relocate.
D&M broke the news on Instagram last Thursday, December 8th, confirming its current building had been sold. The studio has until October 2023, when the current lease runs out, to find a new home.
Speaking to Resident Advisor, D&M mastering engineer Kassian Troyer described the situation as "bad news," but conceded that it "didn't happen completely unexpectedly." He explained: "Gentrification has been quite severe in Berlin for a number of years now and particularly in our part of town, so in a way we were rather lucky that we could stay that long."
According to Troyer, the problems began after D&M's previous landlord, a Danish real estate investment group, sold the entire building complex to a German investment group.
"The new owners apparently follow a common pattern," he added. "They buy a whole block, split it up into smaller entities and sell those on to make a profit. Therefore, they terminated the leases of all tenants at the first possible instance. Since the whole building was sold from one private entity to another, there isn't much one can do about it."
Founded by Basic Channel's Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald in 1995, D&M has operated out of its current Kreuzberg premises for 26 years.
"It's sad, since the place has a lot of history," said Troyer. "The current space is also really well suited for our needs, with two large studio rooms for mastering and cutting and loads of additional space for the office and so on. Rebuilding this setup with all the acoustics and moving all of the equipment etc. will require a lot of work and a lot of money."
D&M shares the same building complex with another Berlin dance music institution, Hard Wax. The fate of the iconic record shop is currently unclear. Meanwhile, D&M has started searching for a new home.
"We're trying to look at it from a positive perspective," said Troyer. "We want to use the move as a way to update a few things and to make a fresh start with as little interruption as possible. For now, the studio will continue working as usual while we're looking at new places. Hopefully we'll find something perfect soon."