Following her signing to One Little Independent Records, acclaimed London-based multidisciplinary artist and producer Laura Misch is heading out on a UK headline tour in December, in support of her debut album ‘Sample The Sky’, bringing her to Southampton’s Joiners on December 10.
Taking the listener on a journey through London’s wild edgelands, the LP is an ode to 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 leftfield pop songs.
Laura says, “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.”
A departure from her previous, more isolated bedroom-produced work (the two 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,” she said. “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,” she said.
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 said; “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.
For tickets to see Laura at The Joiners, click here.
Full tour dates:
4 December Glasgow King Tut’s
5 December Leeds – The Wardrobe
6 December Gateshead – The Glasshouse
7 December Bristol Strange Brew
9 December Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach
10 December Southampton Joiners
11 December Brighton Concorde 2
12 December London EartH
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