On a bittersweet Thursday evening in March, legendary dance duo Maribou State gave London’s Corsica Studios a suitable send-off with a mind-boggling three-hour DJ set. Ben Tibbits headed down to chat with the pair, who will headline LIDO festival in June, reflecting on the iconic Elephant and Castle venue’s everlasting legacy. 

For years, artists and industry insiders have sounded the alarm for small independent venues, shining light on the peril they face in the modern climate. These spaces are the beating heart of the British music industry – especially within an electronic music scene where the ability to play live is so vital. The risks that venues face are far from new, but in a post-COVID and all-round more turmoil-fuelled world where prices continue to skyrocket and the desire to dance the night away has hit a social media-induced buffer, the jeopardy has risen existentially across the past five years. 

The tragic closure of Corsica Studios at the end of March 2026 is emblematic of the growing issue. The gorgeously dingy Elephant and Castle dance music hub has been ingrained in London’s live lineage since it first opened its doors in 2002. Every DJ worth their decks has stepped foot in this hedonistic sanctuary at some point in the last 24 years. It’s been a spiritual haven for the young, free roisterers; a snapshot of pure, unadulterated fun that can only be explained by those who’ve experienced it. 

In September of 2025, the venue announced that it would be shutting its doors for the last time in the following spring, due to pressures surrounding redevelopment and the finishing of its current lease. Founder Adrien Jones and co vow to return, stronger and better, in a new location as soon as possible, but this doesn’t stop it from being an earth-shattering occurrence for electronic music fans, rising and aspiring DJs, and independent venue contemporaries alike. 

The opening months of this year have offered a bittersweet and star-studded epilogue for Corsica. A pantheon of DJs – from Bicep to Chase & Status and Barry Can’t Swim – have stepped forward to play swansong shows at a venue that has been significant to their respective personal and professional journeys.

“This has been a really important venue to us. It sounds like a cliché thing to say, but it has,” Liam Ivory, one half of acclaimed British dance duo Maribou State, reflects. He, his counterpart Chris Davids, and I are kicking back in the upstairs green room of Corsica – a space decorated by years of stickers and graffiti as if doodles of history – at around 8:30pm on a gusty Thursday night in late March. Ivory and Davids are due on stage in half an hour for their three-hour-long DJ set. Just the pair of them, a set of decks, and a couple of hundred achingly enthusiastic attendees.

“We have been very inspired by being here,” Ivory continues. “We had the fortune of DJing at Corsica early on in our career and then coming back at different points to play. We’ve always loved it, and it’s such a great space. There’s an interesting feeling being here because it’s so familiar, but with everything we’ve been through and the world’s been through in the last five, six, seven years, we’ve also not been anywhere near this club in a while.” 

Pioneers in the contemporary vibrance of indie electronica and soulful dance, Maribou State have been a mainstay in UK music for 15 years. Various EPs and three albums deep – including last year’s immaculate Ninja Tune-released return after seven years, Hallucinating Love – and with pretty much every venue or festival worth playing long since ticked off the bucket-list, Ivory and Davids have overcome physical and mental health problems to remain at the crux of creative prowess, and, of course, a damn good time. They know how to get a party going, and that’s just what they’re doing tonight in hosting one of Corsica’s final events.

The goodbye show – a War Child fundraiser event – brings with it nostalgia for the two friends who attended and played here many times in their formative artistic years. But it also brings a twang of compunction. “This is our first venture back [to a small venue like Corsica] for ages, and I’ve almost been feeling a bit guilty about that,” Davids admits. “London [nightlife] is increasingly transient. It is a massive shame, because these venues are where artists who are starting get their first chance to be able to play for other people, and it’s a stepping stone up to making a career out of music.”

It’s in venues like Corsica that Ivory and Davids find a deeper connection with the audience, breaking the barrier between attendee and artist, becoming at one with the internal and communal odyssey that a DJ set can take you upon. “We felt spurred on to keep doing what we were doing because we played in some of the smaller clubs and it would pop off and we’d think it’s going really, really well,” Ivory says. “It just spurs you on because everyone’s just so into it, and there’s something about being in small spaces which I think really speaks to the foundation of what it’s about – the connection that you probably don’t get – no disrespect – at a place like Drumsheds.” 

It’s been a while since they’ve entertained rooms of this size and ilk. These days, it’s festival fields and headline slots that fill their schedule. The most paramount of appearances for the band in 2026 is London’s LIDO Festival, which the pair will be headlining on Saturday 13th June, joined by Kelis, Folamour, Theo Parrish b2b Moodymann, and more to be announced. The day-fest series kicked off its Victoria Park tenure last year with headline slots and event curation from Charli xcx, Jamie xx and more, and this year looks set to once again be a staple of the calendar, with Maribou’s date preceded by a CMAT-led party on Friday 12th and followed by a Bombay Bicycle Club and Metronomy double-header on Sunday 14th. 

The Victoria Park show is the final climax of an 18-month-long tour surrounding Maribou’s latest and “most personal record we’ve done,” Hallucinating Love. With a “well-deserved break” to follow, the guys plan to end the tour with a show-stopping spectacle in London’s east – one of the biggest, boldest shows of their career. “For this Corsica show, there’s no bells and whistles; it’s just us down there playing music. But LIDO is something that, because of the scale of it, we very much are thinking about the creative and the production that we can bring, and the number of people on stage to make it feel more personal. When we do these big shows, we try to fill the stages with as many people as we can. Which is maybe trying to break that disconnect with the crowd, so it feels a bit more immersive. With LIDO, that’s definitely going to be a big part of it – making it as big a show as possible.” 

I shake hands with the fellas and tell them to catch me in the front row later. But not before one parting piece of advice. 

What is your festival survival guide? How do you survive in a field?

Liam: Just say no. I don’t survive that anymore. It fucking ends me. 

Chris: You did Glasto last year. 

Liam: Yeah, I went home with raging heartburn and sunburn. 

The rest of the night passes in a euphoric blur. Corsica is always packed to the rafters – it’s part of the appeal – but today it feels extra busy, teeming with dancing silhouettes whose animated faces appear only as the fluorescent lights flash. Davids and Ivory unsurprisingly mind-boggle on the decks, with a progressive and potent set that sprawls through sub-styles.

As I explore each crevice of the intimate location, one maxim appears ubiquitously – whether in the green room, the smoking area, or on the wall opposite the venue: Corsica Studios Forever. A reminder that, despite the closure and wider difficulty that Corsica and other venues face, nothing can detract from the memories, community and collectivity that have existed and will continue to exist long after the doors physically shut. 

As the night draws to a close, I’ve found three lads from Dublin who have found a second home in Corsica. “It’s weird being here for the closing events, because with all the big artists, everyone feels so put together. But we’ve had so many dark nights here,” the most forthcoming of the gents, James, says as the other boys laugh, giddily, co-reminiscing on mischief likely best left to the imagination.

“We moved to London, local to here, and didn’t know the scene,” another of the Dubliners says. “We just stumbled across this place – it wasn’t recommended to us by anybody, we just happened to arrive. We had one of the best jungle nights of our lives, hearing music that we’d never heard before.” James takes back over: “We’re usually pretty hammered or mind-addled or whatever. And it’s DJs whose names I couldn’t tell you the names of, but they’re always crazy.” 

The venue has also offered the friends some morning entertainment. “If we had a quiet Saturday in, we’d wake up at say 9 or 10am, and go get a coffee in the hopes of seeing some of the crusties coming out.” 

Long live the crusties. Long live Corsica Studios.

Words – Ben Tibbits

Photography – Dillon Rana