A new club called Phonox is opening in Brixton, South London, this September.
Details first arrived of the new venture in June when Brixton nightspot Plan B closed. Phonox will be located at the spot once inhabited by Plan B, though the new owners have plans to revamp the venue. On Friday nights the club will offer different DJs the chance to play all-night sets. Saturdays will be led by the club's resident DJ, who is being announced on August 3rd. Phonox will be open from 6 PM each day.
"We've got a very specific plan and set rules for ourselves to make the club into the place we want it to be: a dance floor full of people with smiles on their faces, not facing the DJ with camera phones at the ready, but enjoying the music for its own sake," says Phonox's Andy Peyton, who's also the director of existing London venues XOYO and The Nest. The club will soon announce its resident DJ as well as lineups for September and beyond. Peyton told Resident Advisor about the history of the project and the new club's music policy:How long has Phonox been in the works?
We've been trying to get a new club for over two years, with a couple of near misses. We initially offered on Plan B last October, but had some strong ideas for what we wanted to before that. These things take a long time!
Tell us about the club's music policy.
We're very much taking a holistic approach to the things we'll change about the venue. I wanted to build a club which rallies against some of the things that come as a result of dance music’s current popularity, in a way that isn't dictating how people should behave. The aim is to create a welcoming environment for like-minded people, focusing on every aspect of the club from the musical policy to artwork, layout and staff. To give some examples, everybody fetishizes various 'golden eras' of dance music, but I don't think you achieve what was good about those times by booking a heritage act alongside three pop-house DJs. We decided to take a chance on a relatively unknown DJ to play every Saturday, indefinitely, with no guests announced ever.
The DJ is someone I've seen play many times and one of the best DJs I have ever put on. We hope people will come because the music is good, rather than to take photos of the DJ for Instagram. For at least the first quarter we'll do all night long/extended sets from the DJs on Fridays. These kind of sessions generally bring out those who are more interested in what the artist is going to play. Every time we end the XOYO residency with one of these marathon sets the atmosphere is amazing, there’s very few restrictions for the DJ, they can play songs they might not often get to play out. We hope to bring that freedom to this space.
We're going to lose the DJ booth downstairs, and create somewhere where people can come out of the intensity of the dance floor and socialise. We want to build a community of regulars, a place where people really feel they're part of something and belong—and this is a step towards that. New lighting, improved sound, and friendly faces on the front door are continuations of the same theme.
Watch a video trailer for Phonox below.