Following last year's standalone single "Alchemy", London-born Laura Misch – saxophonist, singer-songwriter, electronic producer, and field recordist – returns today with "Echoes" alongside news of her second album, Lithic, which lands on June 5 via One Little Independent.

Built from saxophone lines improvised among the caves and quarries of Cornwall in southwest England, "Echoes" first grew out of a score that Misch composed by a BBC Radio 4 program on the rhythmic calls of lemurs. As she explains in a press release:

"Scientists found patterns similar to the drumbeat of Queen’s 'We Will Rock You'. I recreated the rhythm using saxophone keys as percussion before adding the goat skin drum, played by Matt Davies. I was drawn to the connections between ancestral rhythms and those shared across species.”

Watch the video below:

“Echoes” is a song about listening through deep time," she adds, going on:

"It calls back to ancient ancestors and forward to future generations, communing with both. The lyrics were inspired by looking at the oldest known female Venus figurines and feeling awe for these Palaeolithic early earth dwellers, and then watching a friend’s baby crawl on the floor – experiencing the same sense of wonder at how sensorily alive she is.”

The concept of the "deep time" theme extends throughout Lithic, in fact. Inspired by deep listening practitioners like Pauline Oliveros and Annea Lockwood, plus artists, authors, and thinkers such as Barbara Hepworth, Ruth Allen, and David Haskell, the album is said to consider sound as an ancient, even primal material, "summoned from beneath the ground and from the darkest parts of ourselves."

Lithic is released on June 5. Pre-order here. Tracklist below:

1. Breathing
2. Kairos
3. Echoes
4. Siren
5. Scrolls
6. Soften
7. Circle
8. Fo(r)est
9. Jealousea
10. Mythic
11. Shell
12. Spiral

Shortly after the album release, on July 3, Misch will play her largest headline show to date at London's Barbican Centre.

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