Laura Misch - Lithic [Album Review]
By Fofi Tsesmeli
Laura Misch by Joya Berrow
South London-born musician, vocalist, and electronic producer, Laura Misch, who brings an exceptionally rare awe and fulfillment every time you come across her work, blends jazz, ambient, and experimental music by fusing her primary instrument - saxophone, voice elements and multi-layered synthesis to explore human connection and the natural world.
Lithic. Album cover art.
It is not an overstatement to say that Misch stands as a lineal descendant of the greats: Daphne Orham, Pauline Oliveros, Suzanne Ciani echo so loud in the way she intertwines electronic and organic elements, field recordings, harp, saxophone loops and synths to fabricate her "kaleidoscopic dreamscapes".
Her new album, "Lithic", is out via One Little Independent. It was recorded "across various quarries, cliffs and caves of Cornwall, a treehouse at Kudhva, between Tinos in the Cyclades and Old Carpet Factory Studios in Hydra, Unwound Studios in Deptford, in the pebble desert of Dungness". It is the outcome of a span of experimenting, listening and sound-gatering in caves, excavations, rock pools, forests and coasts. Twelve tracks found their way to the surface, existing to elucidate the concept of time in geological terms versus to what we conceive as time in humble, human terms. And the result is utterly wondrous.
Misch has the amazing gift of drawing and drowning you into her world, or in the way she perceives the world and the natural forces that go unnoticed around us. Though the process doesn't sound intricate, overexerting or pushed, it still erodes such complexity and significance. "Kairos" (meaning "weather" in Greek), "Soften" and "Jealousea" are immediate, tender and bathetic. Reaching an elevated point of creation, "Circle", For(r)est" and "Mythic" are heightened moments of expression and composition. Multi-layered, primitive, they offer a truly soul-cleansing experience.
Talent is rare, on that scale, and following the evolution of Laura Misch's work is a very emotional process. In the way that the elements of nature carve and imprint their marks on stone, here comes her ancestral formulation, willing to dig deep into sounds, vibrations and frequencies, in wounds, esoteric thoughts and profound emotions to slowly or rapidly heal the festering scars of the "modern" humanity that is slowly losing its connection with our biggest boon: the nature that surrounds us.
Laura Misch by Joya Berrow
