For decades, one of the most common routes into becoming a graphic designer began via music. Record sleeves – particularly in the vinyl era – provided a democratic canvas that took art and design out of gallery spaces and directly into people’s homes. As a result, great swathes of designers cite the likes of Peter Saville and Vaughan Oliver as key influences on their discovery of the industry.

As digital tech and the streaming giants have taken over music, one of the great changes has been how the role of art and design has diminished. There are still artists that recognise its power and embrace it, but investment in design by record companies now feels niche in comparison to past decades.

One organisation still firmly flying the flag for both records and design though is The Vinyl Factory, which for the past 20 years has built a reputation for pioneering collaborations between artists and musicians. While its output has mostly been in the form of limited edition vinyl releases, the group has branched out into exhbitions in recent years too.

Reverb, which runs until September, is The Vinyl Factory’s latest installation at 180 Studios in London. Set in a labyrinthine space of dark corridors and interconnecting spaces, the show has a suitably club feel, with sounds from the different exhibits blurring into one other and calling you on through the space.

The exhibition features regular Vinyl Factory collaborators including Stan Douglas, whose epic film Luanda-Kinshasa, which previously featured in the VF show The Infinite Mix reappears here, alongside an additional work by the artist. Jeremy Deller, who has created a number of releases with VF and also appeared in The Infinite Mix, is showing Everybody In The Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992, which sees him deliver a lecture to A-level students about the socio-political impact of rave culture and the ‘second summer of love’.

Artist and filmmaker Jenn Nkiru then picks up the educational mantle with a stylish take on the history of techno in Detroit, while other artists explore dance culture from Jamaican dancehall to ballet.

Some works here, including installations by Es Devlin and Hito Steyerl, lean more heavily towards art, with the music acting as a soundtrack rather than an essential theme of the work. While strong as individual artworks, they make less sense in the context of the other pieces here, with the exhibition really coming alive in the moments where it fetishises a love of music and design.

The Vinyl Factory itself takes an opportunity to show off its own wares, via a display of 100 record releases displayed in an installation designed by Ben Kelly, famed for his work for the Haçienda nightclub in Manchester. Works by Theaster Gates and Virgil Abloh celebrate the experience of music as art via a stage design by Gates, which is being used to host live performances during the show’s run, and a spiked pink boombox installation by Abloh.

The culmination of the idea of music as a holy experience comes at the end of the exhibition via an installation by Devon Turnbull, titled Hifi Listening Room Dream No 1. Visitors are asked to remove their shoes before entering the carpeted room, which features the potent scent of incense, a wall of speakers and a turntable. Serving as the ultimate chillout room, the sound is immaculate, with the installation offering a reminder of the transcendental quality of music and the importance of taking time to stop, listen, and step away from the frenetic world outside.

Reverb is on show at 180 Studios in London until September 28; 180studios.com/reverb