Peter Gabriel — Real World Studios, Box, Wiltshire

Real World Studios, founded by Peter Gabriel in 1987 in the converted mill buildings at Box in Wiltshire, is one of the world's great recording facilities and the base from which Gabriel has operated his label, festival, and artistic projects for nearly four decades. Gabriel had settled in the Bath area after leaving Genesis, and the conversion of a 17th-century mill complex into a state-of-the-art studio — set in the Wiltshire countryside, with a glass-walled live room overlooking the millpond — created a recording environment unlike anything else in Britain. The annual WOMAD festival, which Gabriel co-founded, is an extension of the same philosophy.

Gabriel's post-Genesis career is one of rock's great second acts: the four self-titled solo albums (known as Car, Scratch, Melt, and Security), the So album (1986) with its 'Sledgehammer' and 'Don't Give Up' singles, and the deeply collaborative Us (1992) and Up (2002) all showed an artist unwilling to coast on a successful formula. His advocacy for world music — through Real World Records, WOMAD, and his own recordings' use of African and Asian musicians — transformed what mainstream pop could sound like.

Real World Studios is still an active commercial recording facility and offers accommodation on site. Box is a village near Corsham in Wiltshire, close to the town of Bath. The studio complex is not routinely open to public visitors, but Real World's annual Big Day Out recording events occasionally bring in the public. The surrounding Wiltshire countryside — stone circles, ancient trackways, chalk downs — suits the studio's aesthetic perfectly.