Laura Misch announces acoustic album, Sample The Earth

The announcement of Sample The Earth follows her debut album, Sample The Sky, and comes alongside the announcement of a special Union Chapel London headline event on 19 September, where she will be performing these new reworks for the first time with a full live band.

The idea for this reimagined record formed following a series of events that unearthed the acoustic roots of the material. A mapped “Forest Sound Walk” in Sydenham Woods, curated in collaboration with eco-social design studio Holobiont, encouraged deep listening within nature. Misch performed stripped back versions of the tracks using only her unamplified voice and saxophone with Marysia Osu on harp. Amongst the undergrowth the original album’s inner potential was revealed.

This was followed by stage performances, which after a series of unexpected power outages, led to spontaneous acoustic improvisations. “Through playing in forests and adapting to ever shifting environments, I realised that there was this essence I really wanted to try to capture that wasn’t there before. I wanted to reveal something new that happens when you strip away a lot of the production," Misch says.

She then collaborated with engineer and producer Oli Barton-Wood to create a live recorded studio performance with an intimate audience of close friends. The two focused on unearthing a new raw sound, extrapolating woody tones and analogue tape delays. “As an electronic producer I'm used to being able to sculpt sound” says Misch, “but this record was really a process of surrendering to the vulnerability of live recording and being held by others in that process. I said to Oli that I wanted it to feel like the forest. We had the harp with its gut strings, wooden guitars, and the saxophone which is a reed instrument. There was still something low and drone-like missing, so we invited Emma to play cello. I feel like ‘Sample The Earth’ holds its own as a world, that it’s not a sequel to ‘Sample The Sky’ but its own individual entity and as such, a sister.”

This new version is particularly potent for Misch on a personal level, as the original album was created within a romantic relationship that ended as the album was released. Through the processing of the break-up, Laura has recontextualised much of the music, centering it around connection with her community.

“I think I needed to find a way to evolve the music, and in the most respectful of ways; you can love something so deeply and the work that you made, but still have a painful relationship with it. So this process was a kind of healing. To be able to gather with my band and friends and regrow it. This ties into the communal aspect, I think the emotion underneath it all was grief, grief for the relationship, but also grief for the wider world. In coming together, it was very cathartic.”

Tracklist:

1. Sax Rise (Regrown)
2. Lightyears (Regrown)
3. Wild Swim (Regrown)
4. Portals Through To Outer Edges (Regrown)
5. Widening Circles (Regrown)
6. City Lungs (Regrown)
7. Hide To Seek (Regrown)
8. Listen To The Sky (Regrown)
9. Birdseye (Regrown)