Laura Misch writes songs and collages landscapes of sound for them to inhabit. Born in London, but always drawn to edgelands, her work explores the relationship between inner and outer worlds, tracing threads of warmth and intimacy while finding beauty in weathered edges. Drawn to the grounded materiality of acoustic instruments and the dreamlike possibilities of electronics, she weaves singing, synthesis, field recordings and evolving rhythms around melodies breathed through her saxophone, creating songs that emerge from shifting clouds of sound.

Her early self-produced EPs Playground (2017) and Lonely City (2019) led to her debut album Sample the Sky (2023), released after signing to One Little Independent Records, followed by its acoustic sister Sample the Earth (2024), named one of The Guardian’s 10 Best Contemporary Albums of the year, and her second album Lithic (2026). From composing amongst clouds and woodlands to sampling city streets, coastlines, quarries, underground trains and caves, her work moves between the wild and the electronic hum of the city, with place becoming part of the composition itself.

The world of Sample the Sky extended beyond the record itself, with Laura developing sound walks, outdoor performances and site-responsive projects that placed the music back into the environments that inspired it. Her practice has since expanded into installations, workshops and interdisciplinary collaborations, from an ambient Cloud Bath in a disused railway waiting room in Peckham to saxophone sound walks through Sydenham Woods. In 2025, she undertook a BPI-supported Slow Tour across Europe, produced by Philippa Neels, exploring slower, more place-responsive approaches to touring through train travel, extended stays, listening workshops and sound walks.

Journeying through deep geological time, Lithic explores human experience through the elemental worlds of air, water and stone. Laura built a wider world around the album, taking physical form in a 2026 headline performance at London’s Barbican Hall, reimagined as a contemporary cavern for collective listening. An ensemble of musicians came together with movement, film, elemental lighting, upcycled costumes, water dripping in evolving rhythms and hand-built electro-acoustic instruments, including a lithophone made from stones, fossils and shells. The performance reflects Laura’s interest in music as a shared ritual and communal experience, and was released as the concert film and live album Lithic (Live at the Barbican).

Laura has performed internationally across concert halls, clubs, cultural spaces and festivals, including the Barbican, Royal Albert Hall, Concertgebouw, ICA, Kings Place, Berghain Kantine, silent green and Paradiso, as well as Glastonbury, RALLY, Bluedot, End of the Road, All Points East, We Out Here, WOMAD, Eurosonic, SXSW, Montreux and North Sea Jazz Festival.

Her work has received regular support from BBC Radio 6 Music, BBC Radio 3, NTS, KEXP and FIP, and has been featured by The Guardian, The Observer, The New York Times, NPR, The Wire and Nowness. She has also hosted BBC World Service’s Music Life, bringing together Suzanne Ciani, Madame Gandhi and NYX for a conversation exploring music, nature and technology.