Laura Misch

Laura Misch operates from London as a vocalist, saxophonist, producer, and composer, shaping inventive material along the experimental, jazz-tinged borders of electronica via tenor saxophone, synthesizer, and floating contralto timbre. As older sibling to Tom Misch, she instinctively favors open space, crystalline sonics, and measured pacing, whether constructing melodic dance collages on a laptop or deploying her portable setup for “cloud baths”—structure-free instrumental pieces routed through a reverb pedal that respond directly to surrounding environments. The same method surfaces on the 2017 EP Playground, the luminous EDM-infused pop of 2018’s “Lagoon,” and the spare, atmospheric fusion of ambient, jazz, and electronica that defines the 2019 Lonely City EP. In 2022 she joined drone choir NYX to create music for Matthew Rosier’s film City of Trees, and her first full-length album, Sample the Sky, arrived on One Little Indian the following year.

Born into an artistic household in South London’s East Dunwich, a multicultural creative enclave, Misch received early Suzuki Method violin lessons alongside her brother at the urging of their violinist father. Finding the regimen too rigid, she set the violin aside and, prompted by the animated character Lisa Simpson, picked up the saxophone, later telling an interviewer, “She was the only reference that I had as a female saxophonist.” Her neighbor Tim Sanders, saxophonist with the Kick Horns, became her teacher; he had recorded sessions for major-label acts including Blur, the Spice Girls, Kylie Minogue, and Marc Almond. Although Sanders conveyed core technique, Misch learned progressions and charts by ear from the records he had played on.

Music was never her intended profession; she completed a degree in media, communication, and culture at Newcastle University and spent a further year studying biomedical science at Sweden’s Lund University. After graduation she worked as an assistant at Peckham Platform inside the Horniman Museum’s Aquarium, eventually heading her department’s education programs. She credits the position with restoring the childlike openness that shaped her earliest solo recordings, beginning with the self-released debut EP Shaped by Who We Knew—a contemporary, electronic soul-jazz-funk collection that stirred interest in southeast London’s rising jazz and dance scenes. DJ Gilles Peterson aired the EP and invited her onto his program; subsequent broadcasts followed on BBC Radio 6 Music, BBC Radio 1, and Jazz FM. One year later she issued the seven-track companion Playground EP, which drew favorable notice abroad.

In 2019 Misch released Lonely City, an EP assembled entirely in isolation using only laptop, keyboards, and saxophone, taking its title from Olivia Laing’s book The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone. Despite critical praise, she felt its solitary “industrial” character (her term) evoked a video-game soundtrack more than a pop record. Filmmaker Greg Barnes collaborated with her on a short film accompanying the project.

Tiring of laptop-only work, she revisited two formative influences: Norwegian saxophonist Bendik Hosfeth and Italian composer Catarina Barbieri, whose minimalist pieces often employ modular synthesizers that merge analog and digital circuitry. Loop-based composition became an obsession, leading directly to the “cloud baths” approach of making music without conventional song or lyric frameworks. During the pandemic she again partnered with Barnes on a series of “sonic explorations”—videos documenting travels to locations across southeast England, from natural landscapes to wind turbines—where she improvised saxophone responses to each setting with her portable rig. The videos caught the attention of visual artist Matthew Rosier, then developing the installation City of Trees, which examined centuries of human interaction with Epping Forest. Commissioned alongside drone choir NYX (which Misch later joined), she improvised an original score by engaging her saxophone and wearable rig with the ancient trees while sound artist James Bulley captured detailed spatial field recordings. The single “Lagoon (Earth Variation for Saxophone and Voice)” from this project appeared in 2022.

Misch entered a production and distribution agreement with One Little Independent. In June she released her first single, “Portals,” featuring live-band members harpist Marysia Osu and guitarist Tomáš Kašpar. July’s “Hide to Seek” began attracting notice from DJs and producers worldwide. Mid-September brought the pastoral, breezy, euphoric “Listen to the Sky,” praised for its melody—produced by routing her tenor through a modular synth and inspired by one of the forest improvisations. October saw the arrival of her ten-track debut album Sample the Sky, which opened previously unexplored dimensions of her work. She broadened her process to include South London’s artistic community—musicians, field recordists, painters, florists, dancers, and tapestry makers—and realized the finished recording, containing all three advance singles, through a year-long collaboration with co-composer and co-producer William Arcane.