Bringing a classical jazz sound to the mainstream, Laufey’s beautiful vocals are the cherry on top of the elegant fusion, creating timeless and emotionally deep tracks that guide listeners through the highs and lows of romantic entanglement with grace and precision. Laufey broke through the music scene with her first album, “Everything I Know About Love,” a collection of wistful reflections and romantic idealism that was released in 2022.
Tracks like “Valentine” and “Falling Behind” caught traction on social media platforms like TikTok, gaining popularity with younger audiences. One year later, she released “Bewitched,” a mature, introspective album akin to a coming-of-age story. It marked a shift toward deeper emotional storytelling, exploring themes of self-worth, longing and the quiet ache of growing up.
Her latest release, “A Matter Of Time,” is a whimsical wonderland of sound laced with darker themes of self-confrontation. It depicts the rise and fall of a relationship through a harrowing concept of cycles and time, reflected in the clock-themed cover art, ticking sound motifs and lyrical references to timepieces like hourglasses and cuckoo clocks.
The album is tonally split by “Cuckoo Ballet-Interlude,” a purely instrumental track leaning into the themes of clocks and time. The first half is the beginning of a new relationship, full of romantic infatuation and subtle unease. The opening track, “Clockwork,” is a bossa nova piece, introducing the cyclical nature of love, beginning with falling into a romance with an underlying feeling of fear and inevitability.
She addresses obsessiveness in love with “Lover Girl” and “Silver Lining,” retro jazz pop singles released ahead of the album’s release. She refers to this love and longing as a curse, even finding the bright side of being in hell. Anxiety over looks and actions can be found in “Snow White,” a ballet far too relatable. “Carousel” captures the dizzying repetition of emotional highs and lows, longing for stability in a world that spins too fast.
Hauntings of past relationships occur in “Castle in Hollywood,” a cinematic ballad with the clashing of fantasy and reality. This theme continues in the final track of the first half, “Too Little, Too Late.” The song is a devastating, lyrically-focused meditation on lost love and missed chances.
The interlude marks a shift for the album and the relationship between Laufey and her partner. From there on, the tracks have a more confrontational, aggressive and somber tone.
“Forget-Me-Not” is a piece of music riddled with her Icelandic culture that evokes longing for identity and place. Laufey’s sarcastic and witty takedown of a partner’s faults with an attitude of love as a losing game can be found in the single, “Tough Luck.” With backing vocals from artist Clairo, “Mr. Eclectic” is a jazzy pop song that serves as a call against performative males and pretentious suitors with flair and humor.
“A Cautionary Tale” is a soft and brutal realization of how we change for the sake of others. The song is a warning of the mimicry and absorption of partners’ personalities, a side effect of love in this modern era.
The final track, “Sabotage”, is one of Laufey’s most unique yet. Leaving behind the whimsical wonderland of sound, discordant strings and sonic chaos reflects internal anxiety and self-sabotage. The song ramps up in intensity before ending abruptly, mirroring the sudden collapse of relationships and emotional clarity.
With “A Matter of Time,” Laufey sheds the romantic fantasy of her earlier works, trading fairytales for raw introspection. It’s a reckoning with identity, expectations and the emotional wounds love can leave behind. The album explores the cycles we all find ourselves in as we search for connection, meaning and self-understanding.
Even as she ventures into new sonic and narrative territory, Laufey never abandons her signature blend of classical jazz and whimsical charm. This album is the unraveling of an anxious Cinderella stepping off the carousel – her most unique and daring work to date. It’s an honest, poetic look at modern love and a testament to her evolution as both a musician and storyteller.
