Laura Misch — Lithic

Lithic is a cave borne out of emotions and elemental forces. Sound and existential thought echo through its chasms and ancient history lingers within the stone. It is fractured by age, eroded by weather and awakened by voice, body and breath. It traces sound back to its primal origins, unearthing music that is summoned from beneath the ground and from the darkest parts of ourselves.

London-based saxophonist, producer, singer-songwriter and field recordist Laura Misch’s acclaimed debut album Sample of Sky (2023) suspends high above ground in clouds of sound, followed by its acoustic sister-album Sample of Earth (2024) reimagined and regrown amongst the soil. Her forthcoming new album Lithic (2026) is informed by stone, water, lightning and wind, journeying through deep time and into the murky depths of the psyche in the dawn of a new sonic Stone Age.

Over the last decade Misch’s practice has evolved ecologically, exploring the dynamic and intricate relationship between humans, environment, sound and the more-than-human. Her earlier projects Playground (2017) and Lonely City (2019) were inspired by her surrounding built environments and feelings of disconnection, resulting in urban soundscapes created from the four walls of her bedroom studio. Her later work has grown to demonstrate a symbiotic relationship with the threads of her environment.

Lithic emerged from a period of listening, experimenting and sound-gathering in caves, quarries, rock pools and along coastal edges. Its layered strata weave field recordings with saxophone, voice, electronics, strings, drones and percussion into a living, breathing ecosystem of sound. Struck slate and stone form the record’s distinctive rhythms, featuring samples from the Musical Stones of Skiddaw for Scrolls and Kairos—a 180-year-old stone lithophone fused with pulsing electronics and looping saxophone as Misch’s voice gently manoeuvres between natural and artificial sounds. Hydrophones capture the sea’s tumultuous textures, forming the basis of Siren, where thumping “Neolithic rave” erupts amongst the tides of Misch’s siren song. Rumbling tremors from geophone recordings dwell amongst the record’s lower frequencies and strings swell and ebb amid its soft and hard boundaries. At its core, Misch stands as both conduit and conductor, conjuring ancestors of stone and beckoning a call and response between human and more-than-human. Lithic oscillates between motion and stillness, ambience and rhythm, the ancient and the contemporary.

Crafted over a three-month period from autumn into the descent of winter, the contours of Lithic first began to take shape in Cornwall where Misch practiced eco-acoustics and used technology to expand her capacity to hear and to capture sounds that exist beyond the human ear. The rocky formations of the county’s dramatic coastal edges and landscapes became foundational to the album as “resonators of sound”, with saxophone ricocheting amongst the environment of humanmade abandoned quarries and caves and cliffs substituting as reverb chambers.

Saxophone improvisations were further shaped by breath at the Old Carpet Factory studio on the Greek island of Hydra where Misch spent two days recording amongst turbulent strong winds blown in from the surrounding Aegean Sea. Windows of the studio flung open, the furniture in the room shook to create incidental background percussion, a symphony of blusterous gales, sonorous saxophone and wind as collaborator.  

A series of sessions took place in London with the album’s human counterparts with Thomas Fournil of Idrisi Ensemble on the partitive organ (Spiral) and the drone-like tones of a symphonia (Softening), Marysia Osu’s ethereal harp (Fo(r)set), the Neolithic pulses from a goat skin “bombo legüero” bass drum by Matt Davies (Echoes, Scrolls and Circle), Katt Newlon on resonant cello (Shell) and Alfa Mist’s melancholic piano (Jealousea.)

The record’s final chapter of writing and recording concluded in the stormy shingle desert of Dungeness where Misch spent three weeks alone amongst its endless pebble horizons, an apt way to “end the rock cycle”. It was in this winter solitude where she wrote the lyrics for Shell as an ode to seeking shelter, a raw and tender song stripped down to voice and cello. Lithic was co-produced and mixed by Misch and Matt Karmil in Berlin and weathered to its final form through tape machines.

The album’s conceptual foundations are inspired by deep listening practices, eco-acoustics and geology. Inspired by artists and thinkers such as Barbara Hepworth, Pauline Oliveros, Annea Lockwood, eco-psychotherapist and author of Weathering Ruth Allen and David Haskell’s writing on the origins and evolution of sound, Lithic considers sound as an ancient material itself; something that can shape and transform over time. It is a deeply feminine record, tracing the rough and soft edges of aging—the weathered lines etched upon a face, the worn fractures in a rockface.

Searching for a counter offering to the relentless pace of industry, and severe burnout following extensive touring of her debut prompted a major shift in how Misch approached music, redefining her relationship to explore a more sustainable way of making, convening, listening and being. This led to a “slow tour” in collaboration with creative producer Philippa Neels in five cities across Europe, each followed by a day of workshops dedicated to slowness and sound, influenced by Oliveros’ practice of Deep Listening. These gatherings, bringing people together from many disciplines, became a space for shared conversations on burnout, balance, collective listening and the state of the world; all of which inform Misch’s latest work.

Lithic is defined as “of the nature of or relating to stone”. You can hear the elements that carved it, changed it, feel the weight of its existence like a stone in your palm or the weight of a pebble in your pocket. It gestures toward the timeworn ruptures of rock formations and the broken lines on weathered faces. It holds both grief and hope, sways between melancholia and euphoria, a paradox of emotions in the face of ecological crisis. It serves as a reminder of our aliveness and offers music as a communal act, a portal for reflection and to gather and reconnect during a time of fracture. Lithic invites you to lean together against its textures, to journey into deep time and to listen so very deeply.

(Commissioned by One Little Independent Records)