When Laura Misch descended into caves with a saxophone on her back, climbed quarries and immersed herself in rock pools while making Lithic, she was not searching for encounters with nature. She was searching for resonance. And for something that has become a rare commodity in the music industry: time.
The British musician spent months listening, experimenting and gathering sounds. On Lithic, these field recordings are layered with saxophone, voice and electronic elements to create a sound somewhere between jazz, ambient and experimental electronics. The album is the result of a search for a different way of making music.
»I’m more interested in the experience than in having perfect equipment,« says Laura Misch. Her music emerges from movement and environment. The location itself becomes part of the composition, sometimes even an instrument.
This approach is also rooted in her biography. Misch did not study music but biomedical science. »I play entirely by ear,« she says. »I can’t read music, I never write anything down. So when I tour the album, it changes every night because there are no scores for it.«
Listening to stones
Misch taught herself music production at the age of 24, after a decade of playing saxophone. »I’ve always enjoyed expressing myself creatively, but when I learned to produce music, it felt genuinely liberating. I was no longer dependent on other people.« Yet she does not use this newfound autonomy to increase her control over music. Quite the opposite. Much of her work emerges precisely where control is surrendered – to place, weather, acoustics or chance.
»I’m far less afraid of performing than I am of travelling. Music is my safe space.«
Laura Misch
This approach can also be understood as a deliberate counter-movement to a music industry shaped by growth, speed and constant monetisation. Laura Misch speaks openly about burnout and about how difficult it can be to work sustainably over the long term. »You get on a plane, play a show, pack everything down and immediately get on the next flight. In between there’s soundcheck, communication and the merch table – I was completely burnt out and eventually just collapsed.« Her music offers something different in response to that rhythm: slowness, attention, space. »I’m far less afraid of performing than I am of travelling,« she says. »Music is my safe space.«
When Misch speaks of a musical ecology, this is what she means. The term describes more than a simple closeness to nature. It points towards the conditions under which music is made and shared. »There’s always something like the quiet sound of wind, birdsong or the flow of a river,« she says. For Misch, music is always part of a larger context. Among rocks and stone formations, she found something few people seem to have any more: attention – and time. On Lithic, you can hear both.
