London-based multidisciplinary artist and producer Laura Misch is soon to release her long-awaited debut album ‘Sample The Sky’, out October 13th on One Little Independent Records.
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.
Laura shared about the album, “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.”
Gorgeous new single ‘Listen To The Sky’ is key to the album’s overarching theme, that we’re all connected by the natural world, and the largest reference to this is above us all the time. Laura describes it as a “pagan rave song”. She continues, “When you live in a city, you can be so disconnected from the kind of nature that doesn't just grow in the cracks. The sky becomes your main reference, one I'm always looking up to because that's the biggest canvas or connection to truly expansive wilderness we have. 'Listen To The Sky' feels like coming back to the central idea of the record, that humans don’t always have the answers, and people (especially those in power) often need to re-learn to listen, there's so much we can learn if we listen to nature."
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.
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.”
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