Sounding Ground
Laura Misch
March 6-11, 2027
Improvising with the Elements
Arrival: Sat 6th March, 4pm
Departure: Thurs 11th March, 11am.
The Highlights
- Stay in private woodland on the Helford River.
- Listen, record and improvise with the river, the tide, the woods and the weather.
- Build simple, ephemeral instruments from what the land offers.
- Work one to one with Laura on your own practice or project.
- Time to walk, listen and make on your own in the landscape.
- Share what has emerged in informal performances across the residency.
- Optional outings on and around the water.
The Basics
- Five nights accommodation in Cornwall.
- Four full days of teaching, workshops, discussions and activities.
- All inclusive - breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and drinks included.
- All dietary requirements catered for.
This residency costs from £1260
The fee brings together an expert-led, curated residency programme alongside accommodation and full catering for the week.
Shared room £1260
Private King £1590
Private King £1695
Non residential £900
The non residential option includes full participation in all workshops and shared sessions, plus all daytime meals and refreshments.
Laura Misch creates her music in kinship with environments. A chime left in a tree becomes a wind instrument with its own voice, inviting a duet. A saxophone is played in the middle of a storm and the wind layers distortion into the recording. Shifting sonic palettes, textures and forms emerge from the landscape, shaped by weathering and elemental cycles of growth and decayshedding. For her most recent album, Lithic, she went to Cornwall's quarries and caves to explore the earliest sounds on earth: air, water and stone.
Across five days, Laura will work with a small group on the Helford River, exploring what can happen when we ground ourselves and open up to improvising with the elements.
We'll be based in private grounds where ancient oak woods run down to the water. We'll listen, record and improvise with the river, the tide, the wind through the canopy and the resonances of the ground, gathering what the land offers and transforming it into instruments, compositions and new material.
The environment here is both outer and inner. The river, tides, woods and weather influence how we listen, play and respond, while the group creates its own environment through living, sharing and making together. We'll explore how these worlds shape one another.
Come with a project already in development, an idea you haven't had space to follow, or nothing at all. We'll help you find the right starting point.
The residency is less about reaching a particular outcome than re-tuning your senses and developing your own way of listening, sensing, responding and improvising with elemental environments, a relationship that can carry on long after the five days are over.
Open to musicians, sound artists, composers and anyone curious, all disciplines welcome. Laura has spent years developing this way of working herself: “I'm interested in cultivating embodied creativity. A big part of it is slowing down, listening and responding, although it may get a bit wild, depending on what the weather's saying."
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Across five days, Laura will work with a small group on the Helford River, exploring what can happen when we ground ourselves and open up to improvising with the elements.
We'll be based in private grounds where ancient oak woods run down to the water. We'll listen, record and improvise with the river, the tide, the wind through the canopy and the resonances of the ground, gathering what the land offers and transforming it into instruments, compositions and new material.
The environment here is both outer and inner. The river, tides, woods and weather influence how we listen, play and respond, while the group creates its own environment through living, sharing and making together. We'll explore how these worlds shape one another.
Come with a project already in development, an idea you haven't had space to follow, or nothing at all. We'll help you find the right starting point.
The residency is less about reaching a particular outcome than re-tuning your senses and developing your own way of listening, sensing, responding and improvising with elemental environments, a relationship that can carry on long after the five days are over.
Open to musicians, sound artists, composers and anyone curious, all disciplines welcome. Laura has spent years developing this way of working herself: “I'm interested in cultivating embodied creativity. A big part of it is slowing down, listening and responding, although it may get a bit wild, depending on what the weather's saying."
Residency Lead
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.
︎︎︎ ︎︎︎ lauramisch.co.uk
︎ ︎ lauraemisch
Residency Support
Dyski founder Dion Star is a writer and musician working across experimental sound and collaborative practice, and supports the delivery of the residency throughout the week.
Accommodation options
We offer a small number of room types. Each option is booked separately and subject to availability.
Private King with ensuite (1)
Private King (4)
Shared room (7)
We offer a small number of room types. Each option is booked separately and subject to availability.
Private King with ensuite (1)
Private King (4)
Shared room (7)
Private Rooms
Private King with ensuite
A private room for one person with a king-size bed and ensuite bathroom. Includes patio doors out to a terrace and garden. Light-filled and peaceful.
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Private King
A private room with a king-size bed and shared bathroom. First-floor, light-filled, with garden or creek views.
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Private King with ensuite
A private room for one person with a king-size bed and ensuite bathroom. Includes patio doors out to a terrace and garden. Light-filled and peaceful.
Private King
A private room with a king-size bed and shared bathroom. First-floor, light-filled, with garden or creek views.
Shared rooms
Single bed in a room shared with up to three other guests. Each person has their own recessed alcove with a bed, reading light, and storage. Shared bathrooms are light-filled and beautifully designed.
Shared twin
One twin room is available for two people travelling together. This option is by request. Please email us if you would like to share.
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Single bed in a room shared with up to three other guests. Each person has their own recessed alcove with a bed, reading light, and storage. Shared bathrooms are light-filled and beautifully designed.
Shared twin
One twin room is available for two people travelling together. This option is by request. Please email us if you would like to share.
Funded places and access
There are two fully funded places available for this residency, intended to support those who may need financial assistance to attend.
Funded places cover the residency fee, accommodation, and all meals for the week. Travel costs are not included.
Access is important to us. If there is anything that might make attending difficult, including access to equipment, please let us know when applying. We will do what we can to support access.
How to apply
To apply for a funded place, please submit a short statement of no more than 300 words explaining why you would like to take part, what you hope to gain from the experience, and how it would support your practice.
Grant deadline: December 13th, 2026.
Apply for a funded place
Dyski is for musicians, composers, writers, sound artists and anyone working at the edges of their practice.
Based in Cornwall and occasionally further afield, our programme is led by practitioners in experimental music, sound art, modular synthesis, field recording, electroacoustic composition, writing and expanded creative practice.
Funded places are available to support access.
Based in Cornwall and occasionally further afield, our programme is led by practitioners in experimental music, sound art, modular synthesis, field recording, electroacoustic composition, writing and expanded creative practice.
Funded places are available to support access.
Pronounced [ˈdɪski], a Cornish verb meaning to learn, or to teach.
Immersive, place-based workshops and residencies.
Focused on process, experimentation, and learning through practice.
Immersive, place-based workshops and residencies.
Focused on process, experimentation, and learning through practice.