Nine Songs: Tom Misch

Underneath the chatter, the clinks and hum, punters shuffle through the balconies and await a familiar figure absent from the stage for the better part of four years. The theatre’s crimson glow slowly rises and the noise dissipates. When the guitar-laden hero finally steps out, the reaction feels like a warm embrace rather than a rapturous explosion.

Journeying back eight years ago, hot on the heels of his critically acclaimed debut Geography, Tom Misch sold out a string of dates including runs across Europe, the US, a slate of festival slots and a joyous, disco-laden lap of honour at Brixton Academy.

Today the Tom Misch standing onstage feels far removed from the beatmaker who once built tightly wound grooves around MPC samples with Dilla-esque precision on Beat Tape 2 and the Soulection White Label.

For most artists, a four-year absence can feel like a lifetime. For Misch, those years were marked by introspection and a gradual dismantling of the creative identity that had defined his rise. Ruminating over that 2018 run, he says, “Towards the end of the Geography era, playing those shows, I was just a bit done with it.”

It’s an admission which reframes the previous tour somewhat, in a way that feels less of a destination and more of a closing chapter. What he didn’t know then was that he was preparing to usher in a new artistic life. One that would be fraught with anxiety, pain, and questioning, but a road worth travelling down to shake off his Neo-Soul beatmaker label to become an entirely different artist.

“I've become more existential I think over the last four years,” he says, “I’ve been on a real journey. A quarter life crisis, or whatever you want to call it.”

Settling into conversation from his London flat, chewing over leftovers and reflecting on the time between his London shows, Misch speaks with a thoughtful cadence of someone still piecing together what the past few years have truly meant.

"It was incredible. I hadn't performed for four years. I'd done a couple of warm-up shows before that and a few open-mic-type things, but KOKO was pretty crazy."

Part of that, he thinks, was the room itself.

"It's a smaller venue than I could have played, so the people who were there really wanted to be there. Very attentive crowds, which I don’t remember having,” he says, “There was a lot of love in the room.”

It’s a bond forged well over a decade, and one which has ripened with time, he thinks. “It's interesting because I'm older, the people listening to my music have aged with me, so there’s this deeper connection that they have with me,” he says, “I’m not the new kid on the block anymore.”

Stepping out of Logic Pro and into a studio filled with vintage mics, tape machines, and fellow musicians, Misch returned to music at its most exposed. “Full Circle was challenging because I suddenly had to up my songwriting game,” he explains. “If you have bad lyrics over just strumming some chords it’s not going to work. You can have a nice jazzy groove and get away with stuff because it's just a vibe.”

Working closely with Matt Maltese, Ian Fitchuk and Adam Jaffrey, the album was run to tape, with an intentional nod to the warm tones of ‘70s hi-fi records. “I'm less autonomous now because I like to write with people,” he tells me, “I’m not foremost a lyricist. I obviously get very involved and I want to talk about what's going on for me, but I don't actually sit down and write songs by myself.”

So when asked to select nine songs tied to this latest chapter, Misch offers something more revealing than simply a list of his favourites. “A lot of these songs capture something organic and emotional. They have a sense of space and expansiveness that I was really drawn to.”

In tow, they form a loose emotional cartography of Full Circle, his latest and most complete work to date, and the truest reflection of who Tom Misch is at present. “I was thinking about that whole era and the whole thing I was going for. A lot of this stuff in some shape or form I’d been listening to while I was making the record.”

Reference pieces for the album, groove-driven anthems and inspired songwriting, all music that soundtracked a sustained period of healing, ageing and growth.

“The other thing they all have in common is that they’re all live. I've moved away from beats. I was really a beatmaker, that's what Geography was, that’s Beat Tape 2 was,” he says, “Diving into the live element, listening to records how people used to make them with bands and live takes; it was amazing.”

From the quiet double-tracked vocals of JJ Cale to the intimate lyrical sensibilities of Adrienne Lenker, his Nine Songs selections are rooted in simplicity, songcraft and honesty. In unison, acting as a set of coordinates marking the route back to himself.