“Everything is white – like you need to fill the space with your music and thoughts”: Beabadoobee on Rick Rubin’s studio, Shangri-LaWhile he’s deservingly touted as one of the greatest producers of our time, Rick Rubin has a famously hands-off approach to making records. Last year, he admitted he knows “nothing about music”, and that he doesn’t know how to use a mixing desk.
Instead, Rubin claimed it’s his “taste” and “ability to express” what he feels that “has proven helpful for artists”.

READ MORE: Jacob Collier disagrees with Rick Rubin’s philosophies: “His audience is non-creative people for whom creativity is novel”

You might not be surprised, then – given his minimalist approach to creativity – that Rubin’s Shangri-La studio space in Malibu, California is equally simplistic in design. At least according to Beabadoobee, for whom Rubin produced her new album, This is How Tomorrow Moves.
“It’s just so serene and peaceful,” she explains in a new interview with NME. “Everything is white – it’s almost like a blank canvas for your creativity, like you need to fill the space with your music and your thoughts. People call my house the Teletubby house because every room’s a different colour. I remember going back home and it being like going from this beautiful, serene white space into [something like] an acid trip.”
She adds: “Shangri-La is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to and there’s something so magical about it that just made me want to stick around and only focus on the record.”
Beabadoobee says that Shangri-La imparted a dose of inspiration quickly after she arrived, when she wrote the bridge of Girl Song.
“It was one of the first things I ever wrote in the studio, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, this place is magical – it just made me write my favourite bridge, and I don’t even fucking write bridges! That was lit.”

Beabadoobee’s new album This is How Tomorrow Moves arrived on 9 August. Back in May, she detailed, again, the process of working with such a legendary producer as Rick Rubin. She explained that he made her relearn all her demos on acoustic guitar before recording the album.
“It really helped my confidence as a musician – when I heard the songs, just me and acoustic guitar, I was like, ‘Oh shit, this is actually a really good song,’” she said.
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