Taking Off: Laura Misch

Laura Misch is a London-based singer, saxophonist and producer who cannot be easily pinned down. Her debut EP, Shaped by Who We Knew, released in 2016, is an atmospheric mix of neo soul and jazz along the lines of Hiatus Kaiyote and Moonchild, whereas her latest album Sample The Earth veers more towards stripped-back chamber jazz. Along the way, she’s made forays into leftfield pop and electronic music, with a collection of critically-acclaimed releases. It’s clear, on interviewing Misch, that her career has been a journey of exploration, navigating her relationship towards sound, with all its infinite possibilities. When asked about her musical beginnings, the artist is contemplative: “What came first? I guess materially, the voice, because you're not born attached to a saxophone, or any production software. I kind of became aware of singing early on, but not in a recorded sense. More just like for joy.”

Coming from a musical family – her brother Tom is a successful jazz guitarist/singer/producer – Laura picked up the saxophone aged 11, inspired by the fictional character Lisa Simpson amid a scarcity of female saxophonist role models. A local saxophonist became her teacher, one who worked in horn sections for 1990s pop bands like S Club Seven. Through this pop culture lens, Misch fell into the rabbit hole of music production.

“I always thought that the saxophone had this potential to be more than just a monophonic instrument. I thought about the saxophone as textural, creating chordal structure, how it can be manipulated in so many different ways. And I guess I was always kind of interested in looping, or repetition in music anyway. So I started using a loop pedal, and then quickly was like, this is only gonna get me so far. I need to learn how to produce because then you can just do so much.”

She discovered the likes of [electronic composers] Caterina Barbieri and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, and was inspired further by the 2020 music documentary Sisters with Transistors. From there, last year’s album Sample The Sky was born. Made in collaboration with electronic artist William Arcane, the record includes a hefty quantity of field recordings, something that Misch has been exploring as she considers the separation between music and sound:

“Through looking into more leftfield electronic scenes, I was getting really inspired by sound beyond what we kind of define as the narrow field of music. [I’ve] always just been fascinated by soundscapes and textures within production, more than anything else. Life is so entwined with creativity. I was finding the pandemic times incredibly claustrophobic, needing to be outside and just finding a lot of solace in the sounds of nature. And yeah, that’s all been woven back into the music.”

It was while touring Sample The Sky that Misch began to experience a desire to return to the earthiness in sound, culminating in the sister album Sample The Earth, out in June of this year. Despite being a Londoner, or perhaps because of it, Misch has developed an affinity towards natural sounds, and uses them in her creative practice.

“You’re so enveloped in industrial sound, that [natural sound] becomes quite magical. I think there’s a primal desire to find spaces that aren’t just super saturated. And maybe growing up here, that just wasn’t my experience. Maybe it’s in the last four, five years that it’s become something. And I think the idea of field recording as well is something that was so powerful for me, because my early introduction to production was mediated through a laptop. So I’d be playing instruments on a laptop that I’d never seen in real life. And you felt kind of severed from the source of the sound. Whereas when you go out and field record, you have a real bodily connection to something, and I value that. I’m not a purist about it, but I just began to really crave that.”

Over the past couple of years, Misch has widened her collaborative net, working with musicians Marysia Osu and Tomáš Kašpar, as well as choreographer Chantel Foo. She’s also a member of NYX, an electronic drone choir which has been making waves via its innovative, collaborative projects. She has a few EPs and albums under her belt, yet even with these accomplishments, she exudes an authentic curiosity towards the unknown, and an ongoing desire to learn and adapt her approach to music-making. Her summer plans, which involve recording her saxophone while wild camping, are a testament to this:

"I want to explore what a modular set-up looks like, where you have to work with the parameters of daylight, or the weather, or how much power you have. I'm interested in what it’s like to create outside of studio contexts, but also the inspiration you can get from being outside and feeling really connected.”

While these plans sound enviably dreamy, they also characterise Misch as a musician who is going beyond the usual endless cycle of recording, releasing, promoting, and touring, in search for something more nourishing and meaningful.

Laura Misch headlines Union Chapel, London on 19 September

This article originally appeared in the July 2024 issue of Jazzwise magazine. Never miss an issue – subscribe today