Laura Misch is a South-London born saxophonist, singer-songwriter, electronic producer, and field recordist. Her forthcoming album ‘Lithic’ is informed by stone, water, lightning and wind, journeying through deep time and into the murky depths of the psyche in the dawn of a new sonic Stone Age.
Emerging from a period of listening, experimenting, and sound-gathering in caves, quarries, rock pools and along coastal edges, its layered strata weave field recordings with saxophone, voice, electronics, strings, drones and percussion into a living, breathing ecosystem of sound. Inspired by deep listening practices, eco-acoustics, and geology, ‘Lithic’ considers sound as an ancient material itself, oscillating between motion and stillness, ambience and rhythm, the ancient and the contemporary.
Laura Misch’s 2024 project ‘Sample The Earth’ (included in The Guardian’s ‘Top 10 Contemporary Albums of 2024’) was an acoustic counterpart to her acclaimed debut ‘Sample The Sky’, an ode to care, connection and listening to the natural world. Her debut LP built on her self-produced EPs ‘Playground’ (2017) and ‘Lonely City’ (2019), each grounded in collaboration with her South London community.
Misch’s practice extends beyond the studio; she has hosted sound walks, created ambient saxophone “cloud baths” in disused railway rooms and worked with eco-social design studio Holobiont to plant her music back into the environments that inspired it.
Questions and Answers
3 FACTS
1. The earliest sounds on Earth, before life emerged, were air, water and stone.
2. The earliest known musical instrument is a bone flute, dating back over 40,000 years.
3. One of the first creatures believed to make communicative sound was an ancient ancestor
of modern crickets.
11 QUESTIONS
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
Nature. And by nature, I mean everything, including human nature. I’m endlessly inspired by
ecosystems and webs of relationship, the way everything is interconnected and constantly
shaping everything else.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
My dad taught me and my siblings to play the violin when we were very young, around six
years old. We learned using the Suzuki method, which is based on playing by ear rather
than reading notation. I still don’t read music, and I think that early emphasis on listening has
shaped the way I create to this day.
3. What are five of your favourite albums of all time?
I don’t really have fixed favourites, it’s always changing. So instead, here are five recent
albums by friends and contemporaries that I’ve been loving:
1. Preludes by Flaer
2. YIAN by Lucinda Chua
3. No Going Back by Matt Karmil
4. Lean by Art School Girlfriend
5. NYX by NYX
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Freedom.
5. What’s your favourite place in your hometown?
My garden.
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
I’d cook.
7. What was the last record or piece of music you bought or listened to?
What It’s Like to Be a Bat by Finn Streuper, I just discovered it today!
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
A dream collaboration would be with Hania Rani.
9. What was your best gig, either as a performer or as an audience member?
I recently saw Ichiko Aoba live, and it was completely enchanting.
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
Fundamental. Technology allows me to shape acoustic sounds into immersive environments,
extending the voice and saxophone into something more elemental and expansive.
11. Please tell us about the making of your latest album, Lithic, and the importance of the places where it was created to you and your process.
Lithic was created across a series of places that felt charged with elemental energy ~ caves, quarries, coastlines, forests and studios. The title comes from the word “lithic, ” meaning relating to stone. The album is rooted in the idea of deep time and in the earliest sounds on Earth: air, water and stone. I wanted to make a record that felt as though it had emerged from the landscape itself.
I spent a lot of time recording in Cornwall, Hydra, Dungeness and other locations where the natural world became an active collaborator. Wind, rain, sea, rock and the resonance of caves all shaped the sonic palette. The music began through field recordings, improvisations and live performances with saxophone, voice and electronics. I became fascinated by how stone is slowly weathered by the elements, and how we as humans are shaped by memory, experience and time in much the same way.
I wanted Lithic to feel like entering a cave ~ an ancient, resonant space where sound, emotion and history echo together. It is a record about erosion, transformation, softness and listening to something much older than ourselves.
