Jessica Roch 'Human Music: Live Improvisations I' [CD]

Limited Edition Digipak CD (Ships Late July)

Glass-mastered, silkscreen printed CD housed in a 4-panel, 300g satin cardstock Digipak. Clear cd tray. Includes download code insert. Shrinkwrapped. Pressed, manufactured, and assembled in Canada. Mastered by James Bernard. Photography by Jessica Roch. Layout and design by zakè. Edition of 200.

Jessica Roch is a London based, award winning composer, multi instrumentalist, sound designer, and improviser. Her solo work moves fluidly across genres, weaving ambient and electronic textures with elements of minimalism, jazz, folk, and experimental music. A classically trained violinist and pianist, Jessica creates music for film, games, and contemporary media, while also collaborating as a session musician with artists including Super Furry Animals. In 2025, she received a Composer Spotlight Award at the Production Music Awards. She has recently performed at Cafe OTO and is a co-founder and director of The London Ambient Orchestra. Jessica's composition Pandemonium: Music for Parakeets, created as part of a cross disciplinary artistic collaboration, was featured at The Design Museum as part of the Artificial exhibition, where it was on display throughout the summer season.

Speaking about her debut album on Past Inside the Present, Human Music: Live Improvisations I, Jessica explains: “This album is an unambiguous protest and rejection of AI-generated “music”. It is imperfect, it is raw and it is unpredictable. That is the beauty of live improvisation. It is innately human.”

Drawn from performances captured between 2022 and 2025 in concert halls, intimate venues, and assembly rooms across England, Human Music: Live Improvisations I is a document of spontaneity, vulnerability, and presence. Each piece unfolds in real time, free from predetermined outcomes, embracing the subtle imperfections, fleeting decisions, and emotional responses that define genuine human expression.

The album's title serves as both a statement and a philosophy. In an era increasingly shaped by automation and algorithmic creation, Human Music celebrates the irreplaceable qualities of live performance: intuition, risk, connection, and the profound beauty found in uncertainty. These recordings are not polished constructions assembled from endless revisions, but living moments captured as they happened, shaped by the atmosphere of the room, the energy of the audience, and the artist's instinct in the moment.

Beautifully curated from a collection of live performances, the album was mixed by Jessica herself and mastered with remarkable sensitivity by James Bernard. Together they preserve the immediacy and emotional depth of each performance while allowing every nuance, resonance, and breath of the room to remain intact. The result is a deeply personal body of work that stands as both an artistic statement and a testament to the enduring power of human creativity.

Performed live by Jessica Roch on violin, synth, vocals, pianos, vibraphone, many pedals and (many) electronics. Written, recorded, produced, arranged, and mixed by Jessica Roch. Mastered at Ambient Mountain House by James Bernard. Photographic compositing and imagery by Jessica Roch. Design and layout by zakè. ©℗ 2026 Past Inside the Present. This is PITP81. pastinsidethepresent.com / pitp.us / jessicarochmusic.com

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Thank you to Arts Council England for the invaluable DYCP grant and for the knowledge, experience, and opportunities it provided throughout this journey. Special thanks to Strymon Pedals, Richard Day, Zach Frizzell, Cynthia Bernard, Phoebe Bentham, and Penni Roch for their support and encouragement along the way.

An especially heartfelt thank you goes to Adam Znaidi, whose guidance and support made this project possible.

Finally, thank you to my friends and family for continually encouraging me to take the leap and begin performing my improvisations live. As a recovering perfectionist, the process has been both terrifying and transformative, but it has ultimately changed my life for the better.

-JR