London-based multidisciplinary artist and producer Laura Misch has announced the release of her long-awaited debut album ‘Sample The Sky’, out on October 13th via One Little Independent Records.
Talking about the album, Misch said: “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.”
On her first single ‘Portals‘, also our Song of the Day, that organic connection to nature is tangible from the opening of the accompanying video. Electronics coalesce with Misch’s hand movements to the point where you can almost sense a shift in perception…like being plugged into a mycorrhizal network.
The song communicates a particularly profound moment in Laura’s life. “During lockdown I was living with my family and grandparents. My granddad, who was 94, got really ill and passed away at home in his bed, surrounded by my mum, gran and me. We were all looking after him, and it was a period of time where the world was in chaos and the care felt intensified, but also it was a real honour to be able to be there and give that much attention to this process. It was a very organic death. The moment he left his body it was like he went from being there to being everywhere. That’s what this song is about, on some level it’s about a portal into the unknown. He was such a green-fingered person and believed so much in returning to the earth, and the interconnectedness of everything, and that we’re made up of elements that will one day become everything else.”
She says that the accompanying video “is about sensing the natural world, feeling connected to the elements from the sky to the snails, and dancing with it, knowing that I’ll eventually return to the earth. It was made with care and woven together by many friends’ creations, from Tobby Wu’s five-meter floral hair braid to Chantel Foo’s insect inspired dance choreo”.
The list of credits on this video is one of the longest I’ve seen in a while, a hint at Laura’s own broadening horizons as she shifts from her previously more isolated bedroom-produced work to opening 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.
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
12.07 – Montreux, CH – Montreux Jazz Festival
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)
