Sets up experimental space for stable characters around One Direction producing romantic pieces of music (8)
I believe the answer is:
ballades
'romantic pieces of music' is the definition.
'sets up experimental space for stable characters around one direction' is the wordplay.
'sets up' says the letters should be written backwards.
'experimental space' becomes 'lab' (laboratory).
'for' says to put letters next to each other.
'stable characters around' becomes 'lade' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'one direction' becomes 's' (S is an example).
'lab' back-to-front is 'bal'.
'bal'+'lade'+'s'='BALLADES'
'producing' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for ballades that I've seen is " poems with few rhymes".)