inSpiral: Steve, you've been playing at the inSpiral Lounge since we opened. What is it about this place that keeps bringing you back?
Steve Hillage: Well, I think it's the combination of genuine values and a genuine vibe. There are very few venues in London — or anywhere in the world — where you can eat extraordinary food, drink something that actually nourishes you, and then get on a dance floor in the same space and feel completely at home. inSpiral has always felt like an extension of the festival world that Miquette and I have been part of since the very early days. That chill-out, community-centred sensibility. It's rare to find it on a permanent basis in a city like London.
inSpiral: You're strongly associated with the festival circuit — Glastonbury, Glade, Sunrise Celebration. How does the inSpiral Lounge compare to performing at a festival?
Steve Hillage: A festival gives you sky, space and a sense of collective adventure. The inSpiral Lounge gives you intimacy. When you perform for a smaller crowd in a room like this, you can feel the energy in a very direct way. The audience and the performers are genuinely in dialogue. Miquette and I have always loved that — the live experience as a genuine exchange. At Mirror System shows here the audience is so attentive and so receptive. It's a beautiful thing.
inSpiral: Tell us about the connection between the music you make and conscious living — the values that inSpiral is built around.
Steve Hillage: The music I've been making since the early '70s has always been connected to an idea of expanded consciousness. Whether that was the cosmic guitar explorations with Gong, or the trance states generated by System 7, or the deep floating spaces of Mirror System — the intention is always to open something up in the listener. To create a space for reflection, or joy, or a kind of formless presence. And that's very much aligned with what the best approach to food and nourishment is about too — not just feeding the body but also nourishing something deeper. inSpiral understands that completely.
inSpiral: You opened Rainbow Dome Musick in 1979 at the Festival for Mind-Body-Spirit — one of the great early ambient albums. Do you see a through-line from that to the ethos of a place like this?
Steve Hillage: Absolutely. Rainbow Dome Musick was created for exactly the same kind of space — a place where people came to explore the connections between inner experience, health, awareness and creativity. That festival was one of the first to bring together alternative medicine, spirituality, conscious food, and music in one place. inSpiral does the same thing, just on a daily basis in Camden. [Laughs] The idea hasn't aged. If anything it's more relevant than ever. The world is crying out for spaces where you can step off the treadmill and reconnect.
inSpiral: What do you think about the raw food and vegan movement that inSpiral represents? Do you have a personal relationship with that kind of eating?
Steve Hillage: Miquette has been vegetarian for decades and we've both moved progressively towards understanding food as medicine and as something deeply connected to the planet. The food at inSpiral is extraordinary — genuinely some of the best I've eaten anywhere in the world. What strikes me is that it isn't austere or punishing. It's joyful. The flavours are incredible. There's a philosophy behind it that says pleasure and health are not opposites. I think that's radical and important.
inSpiral: System 7 has just released new material. What's the musical direction you're exploring right now?
Steve Hillage: We're always evolving. The core of what System 7 does is create music that works simultaneously on a physical and a psychic level — music you can dance to that also takes you somewhere transcendent. We've been integrating more live elements, more organic textures alongside the electronics. And Mirror System continues to explore the deeper, quieter spaces. Both projects feel very alive to us right now. We're performing more than ever and the response has been extraordinary. There's a real hunger for this kind of music.
inSpiral: Final question — if you could give one piece of advice to someone discovering this world of conscious music and conscious living for the first time, what would it be?
Steve Hillage: Follow what genuinely resonates with you. Not what you think you should like, not what is fashionable, but what actually opens something in your heart and your body. Whether that's music, food, community or all three — trust the resonance. And places like inSpiral exist precisely to give you those touchstones. Come here, eat extraordinary food, listen to music that means something, be with people who care about the same things. Let yourself be nourished.