Following her signing to One Little Independent Records, London-based multidisciplinary artist and producer Laura Misch will release her long-awaited debut album ‘Sample The Sky’ on October 13th.
An enchanting journey through London’s wild edgelands, the LP is an ode care, connection and listening to the natural world. ‘Sample The Sky’ responds to nature’s patterns through organic electronic productions, embodied lyrics, wind inspired saxophone, singing and synthesis all woven into intricately crafted left-field pop songs.
Sample the Sky
“Sample the Sky is an album that can be distilled as the feeling you have when you see the sky and you are in such awe that you feel compelled to photograph it and send it to someone – the moments that feel so intimate and personal yet universal, un-ownable and ephemeral.”
Atmospheric new single ‘Hide To Seek’ utilises the album’s only external sample, by sound designer and composer James Bulley who uses geophones to record the inside of trees, capturing the internal conversation of the forest. Laura tells us that “the kind of elemental scope of the album really does expand between the earth and the sky. The track is about desire and wanting someone to draw out parts of yourself that you’re hiding and how we’re all shaped by this interplay. The forest undergrowth feels like a perfect metaphor for the subconscious mind, and it’s a charged song. I imagined these mycelial threads leading the listener into the album world”.
Playgroud and Lonely City
A departure from her previous, more isolated bedroom-produced work (critically acclaimed EPs ‘Playground’ and ‘Lonely City’ released in 2017 and 2019 respectively), Laura opened up every aspect of the process to her South London creative community. This ranges from guest musicians and field recordists to painters, florists, dancers and tapestry makers. Though some songs had been years in the making, the catalyst for the record’s crystallisation was a year-long collaboration with composer and producer William Arcane, whose “synth wizardry” caught Laura’s ears. Every sound on the record has been played, synthesised or recorded from scratch, shaping it into its near final form before weaving in performances from Laura’s recently formed live band; Marysia Osu on harp and Tomáš Kašpar on guitar.
Laura has performed at venues and festivals such as Royal Albert Hall, Roundhouse, Berghain, Rockwood Music Hall, All Points East, Eurosonic, SXSW and We Out Here. She has been consistently supported by BBC Radio 1, BBC 6 Music and Worldwide FM and featured in publications like Wonderland Magazine, Clash Magazine, Varsity, NME, The Quietus, Red Bull Music and The Guardian.
Over the last few years, Laura’s music practice has developed alongside her growing curiosity to reconnect with her surroundings outside, discover with new collaborators, as well as leave the confines of self-recording. In 2021, Laura began outdoor composing experiments including working with engineer Andrea Adriano to build a wearable rig, with a preamp, looper, and modular FX, into a belt. “I primarily have a loop-based saxophone practice. I like to play licks, with harmonies gradually building whilst I’m walking.” She composed an immersive outdoor installation in collaboration with the artist Matthew Rosier and NYX, a collective of female, trans and non-binary singers who manipulate their voices through electronics. Together, they recorded improvised saxophone and voice in Epping Forest, eventually soundtracking large-scale tree projections, mapped onto city buildings in central London. Following the project she joined NYX, “being part of this choir gave me permission to push boundaries in my own work, I’ve never felt so deeply part of a musical community before and that has been simultaneously supportive and freeing.” These explorations and new connections led her to embrace sound outside of music: ASMR, sensory, textural sound and everyday sound. These textures are layered across ‘Sample The Sky’ with warmth, enveloping themselves around the listener as they grow, shift and intertwine.
The album’s title and meaning stems partly from Laura’s journey from studying biomedical sciences at university to becoming an electronic music producer, she says; “I’ve always found parallels between biomed and music, a microphone is a microscope of sound, and a studio is laboratory of distillation, producing feels like you’re discovering, it feels akin to uncovering in science, ‘Sample The Sky’ felt like a meeting between these two worlds, to study a ‘sample’ is to gather and look deeply, whilst the ‘sky’ symbolises our interconnectedness to nature”.
‘Sample The Sky’ is also a reference to sampling culture in music, and Laura’s musical influences spanning from early experimental electronic music pioneers to 90’s pop and R&B. She continues; “My saxophone teacher was in the Kick Horns, a horn section that arranged and played horns on songs like Green Light by Beyonce, obviously as an 11 year old that was the coolest thing ever, so as I was discovering music, I was always listening out for the horn sections. That’s how I got hooked on the saxophone”. As a self-taught electronic producer, it wasn’t until much later that she discovered the genesis of electronic music and became interested in the tape works of Daphne Oram, the wild synthesis of Suzanne Ciani and the environmentally aware sonic meditations of Pauline Oliveros. “There was so much experimentation and boundary pushing in each of their practices and that moved me in the same way a lot of 90s sample-based production did, it felt so magical and radical to me. I wanted to make a record that is a constellation of these influences.”
Live dates
30.07 – London, UK – Festival14
05.08 – London, UK – Rally Festival
31.10 – Vienna, AT – B72
01.11 – Zurich, CH – JazznoJazz Festival
04.11 – Milan, IT – Arci Bellezza
07.11 – Madrid, ESP – Sala Tempo
08.11 – Barcelona, ESP – La Nau
10.11 – Warsaw, PL – BARdzo Bardzo
11.11 – Prague, CZ – Cafe V Lese
12.11 – Cologne, DE – MTC
13.11 – Paris, FR – Point Ephemere
14.11 – Brussels, BE – Botanique
16.11 – Amsterdam, NL – Paradiso (upstairs)
18.11 – Berlin, DE – Berghain
19.11 – Hamburg, DE – Hebebühne
20.11 – Copenhagen, DE – Ideal Bar @ Vega
22.11 – Stockholm, SE – Stadsgardsterminalen
23.11 – Oslo, NO – Blaa
04.12 – Glasgow, UK – King Tuts
05.12 – Leeds, UK – The Wardrobe
06.12 – Newcastle, UK – Gateshead
07.12 – Bristol, UK – Strange Brew
09.12 – Cardiff, UK – Clwb (main room)
10.12 – Southampton, UK – Joiners
11.12 – Brighton, UK – Concorde
12.12 – London, UK – Earth (Theatre)
Tracklist
- Hide To Seek
- Light Years
- Portals
- Outer Edges
- Listen To The Sky
- Widening Circles
- City Lungs
- Sax Rise
- Wild Swim
- Birdseye
