From LA to Stratford-upon-Avon... musician Laura Mvula enjoys seeing the world
since taken Mvula all over the world. These are some of the places that have particularly helped her creativity...
Mvula recently spent a month and a half in LA working on her third album. “I’d visited LA when touring, but it’s very different,” she says. “Before having this opportunity I had very closed, stereotypical ideas about LA not having the grit of New York or London – just having people who only enjoy yoga and smoothies.”
However, spending a bit more time there showed Mvula how much LA has to offer, from the local arts scene to the surroundings. “LA is a place where you can pretty much have access to everything,” she says.
“The landscape is beautiful because it’s so flat – you can see everything, you can see so much sky. You can hike if you want, you can go to the beach a few miles away, you can go to the Hollywood Hills – where I was staying, so I had this beautiful view of the city to wake up to every morning.”
Crucially, “I had forgotten what sunshine was,” she adds with a chuckle. LA gave her an opportunity to slow down and breathe, which she says is “so important for make room for ideas to come in, and getting a new flow.”
New York is where Mvula created The Dreaming Room. “That was an amazing experience because I was in the heart of the East Village, where Jimi Hendrix built his Electric Lady Studio,” she says. “So I was working in an iconic New York space for three weeks, which was special, and they’ve kept so many of the features of the studio since the late Seventies.”
It also helped that the city has everything going for it: “Whether it’s shopping, food, places to stay or studios – it’s all there.”
You might expect a musician to be inspired by New York or LA, but what about Stratford-upon-Avon? This historic English town is close to Mvula’s heart, as it’s where she composed the music for Antony & Cleopatra for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
As a Midlands girl, Mvula had been to the city before on school trips, but returning as an adult was different. “The first thing that struck me is how, as a kid, I had ignored so many beautiful things,” she says.
“Environment is so important while I’m making music - not just my immediate space, but what’s happening when I open the front door, what my eyes see, the vibe of the people of the town, what’s the history, what’s the story like?” Luckily, Stratford isn’t short of history.
“I enjoyed the cobbled streets, waking up every morning and going for a run alongside the lake – which is something, because I’m not even a runner,” says Mvula wryly. “There were so many swans in the lake, and that took me back to childhood, because park life was so regular for me growing up.”
Laura Mvula is working with Hotel Indigo on Clues to the Neighbourhood, a curated collection of artefacts which lets guests and visitors discover off-thebeaten path experiences.