Laura Misch

Laura Misch is a London-based singer, saxophonist, producer, and composer who works wonders on the experimental and jazz-infused edges of electronica with her tenor, synthesizer, and an airy contralto voice. The older sister of Tom Misch, her music offers an instinctive embrace of space with crystalline tones and unhurried tempos, whether making melodic dance collages on a laptop or using her portable rig to create "cloud baths" -- instrumental music without conventional structures using a sax through a reverb pedal while interacting with her surroundings. That approach appears on her 2017 EP Playground, the sublime EDM-infused pop of 2018's "Lagoon," and the laconic, atmospheric union of ambient, jazz, and electronica on 2019's Lonely City EP. She collaborated with drone choir NYX on the music for Matthew Rosier's film City of Trees in 2022, and her debut long-player, Sample the Sky, appeared on One Little Indian in 2023.Misch was born into a family of artists in South London's East Dunwich, a multicultural creative community. Her father, a violinist, enrolled her and her brother in Suzuki Method violin lessons. Finding it too restrictive, she abandoned the instrument and, inspired by the example of the animated character Lisa Simpson, took up the saxophone. She told an interviewer, "She was the only reference that I had as a female saxophonist." Her teacher was her neighbor Tim Sanders, the saxophonist in the Kick Horns. They did session work for major-label pop acts ranging from Blur and the Spice Girls to Kylie Minogue and Marc Almond. Though he taught her technique and fundamentals, Misch would listen to the songs on records he'd made and figure out the progressions and charts by ear.Though she loved playing, she didn't intend to follow music as a vocation. She enrolled at Newcastle University and earned a degree in media, communication, and culture, then spent a year at Sweden's Lund University studying biomedical science. After leaving school she took a job at Horniman Museum's Aquarium as an assistant at Peckham Platform. Misch was promoted to run her department's education programs. She credits the job with reacquainting her with the child-like spirit of innocence that informed her earliest solo recordings, including her self-released debut EP Shaped by Who We Knew, a contemporary, electronic, soul-jazz-funk set that sent ripples across the burgeoning southeast London jazz and dance music scenes. It caught the ear of DJ Gilles Peterson, who not only played it, but invited her onto his program. She has appeared on BBC Radio 6 Music, BBC Radio 1, and Jazz FM. She followed Shaped with the seven-track companion Playground EP a year later, which drew positive notice internationally.In 2019, Misch released Lonely City, an EP recorded completely in solitude using only her laptop, keyboards, and saxophone. She titled it after writer and cultural critic Olivia Laing's book The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone. Despite the acclaim it received, she perceived that its solitary "industrial" (her definition) sound came off sounding more like a video game soundtrack than a pop record. She collaborated with filmmaker Greg Barnes to direct a short film for the album. Having had her fill of working solo on a laptop, she returned to the music of two early inspirations: Norwegian sax player Bendik Hosfeth and Italian composer Catarina Barbieri, whose minimalist compositions are sometimes recorded on modular synths combining analog and digital components. She became obsessed with the concept of looping. She began her "cloud baths" strategy after this, making music sans conventional song or lyric structures. During the pandemic, Misch again collaborated with Barnes on a series of "sonic explorations," videos in which they traveled to various places in southeast England, from natural settings to wind turbines, as she and her portable rig improvised sax pieces in response to each environment. These videos attracted the attention of visual artist Matthew Rosier, who was then working on a video installation titled City of Trees, which focused on the relationship between humans and Epping Forest over the centuries. Commissioned along with the drone choir NYX (Misch later joined the group), she took her saxophone and wearable rig and improvised an original score by interacting with the ancient trees. Sound artist James Bulley also joined them, capturing field recordings in vast, spatial detail. The single "Lagoon (Earth Variation for Saxophone and Voice)" from this project was issued in 2022.Misch signed a production and distribution deal with the One Little Independent organization. In June she issued her first single, "Portals," that also included members of her live band -- harpist Marysia Osu and guitarist Tomáš Kašpar. In July, the single "Hide to Seek" began drawing attention from DJs and producers across the globe. In mid-September, the pastoral, breezy, blissed-out "Listen to the Sky" was released to rave reviews. Its melody -- achieved by Misch putting her tenor through a modular synth -- was inspired by one of her forest explorations. In October, her ten-track, long-playing, debut album Sample the Sky appeared. It showcased a side of Misch's music that was previously unheard. She opened up her creative process to the South London artistic community and engaged with musicians, field recordists, painters, florists, dancers, and tapestry makers. The finished recording -- which included all three advance singles -- was realized in a year-long collaboration with co-composer and co-producer William Arcane.
© Thom Jurek /TiVo