A new studio space has been built by the "bare hands" of a Manchester band in Oldham to support creatives in the city who have been evicted from Brunswick Mill.

IST IST, a post-punk band from Greater Manchester, have announced they will be revealing a brand new community studio in Oldham next month following the shock closure of a much-loved and legendary rehearsal space in the city.

The historic mill in Ancoats had been utilised as a creative space for generations of musicians and artists - and appeared in music videos and TV shows in homage to its cultural legacy in Manchester.

However, now that Brunswick Mill is earmarked for a £58m redevelopment which will see it turn into a block of 150 flats, IST IST, who had used the mill for five years themselves, have the answer to Manchester creatives' collective heartbreak.

The band quit their day jobs to establish their own rehearsal rooms and, with their "own bare hands", transformed the third floor of Nile Mill A in Oldham into a new studio.

Called KVR Studios - named after the band's label - the 4,000 sq ft is comprised of nine rehearsal rooms, a blackout studio room for photoshoots and videos and lockable storage areas for equipment.

The band hopes it will be a safe place for people in the city who have been forced out of their creative spaces due to "gentrification".

Artists and bands will be able to rent the rooms in four-hour blocks every month and will benefit from 24-hour access to the facilities.

IST IST's Andy Keating said: "This is the second time we've been in this situation as I'm sure a lot of other bands have been.

"Instead of becoming a tenant elsewhere and potentially having to share a room with other bands which brings its own logistical headaches, we decided to establish KVR Studios, named after our label, Kind Violence Records."

The bassist said he hopes the space will be "somewhere where bands and artists want to hang out and for it to be an aspirational place to rehearse, write and create".

The doors to the studio open in early April this year and aligns with IST IST's upcoming LP released at the end of this month called Protagonists.

Protagonists will be the band's third album since they formed in 2014 and has had the touch of legends recording and mixing it, including Greg Calbi and Steve Fallone at Sterling Sound (The National, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Interpol).

IST IST will be performing material from Protagonists for the first time at the O2 Ritz in Manchester on March 31 - and reserved 100 free tickets for the show for music fans working in the NHS.

Tickets for their homecoming show can be purchased on Ticketmaster. 

Brunswick Mill Studios, the studio company that operated in the Ancoats mill, has relocated and set up a new home in Salford Crescent.