Icelandic-Chinese grammy-winning jazz sensation Laufey has launched her new album A Matter of Time. She told The Hollywood Reporter, it’s her “most daring album yet.”
The 26-year-old singer has been credited with popularizing the genre of jazzpop among Gen Z. In her latest album, she explores darker themes unlike her previous upbeat albums Everything I Know About Love (2022) and Bewitched (2023).
Laufey emphasized the album showed a more vulnerable side of her.
“I have so many complex emotions within me. I’m just really good at hiding them,” she said. “I think with this album, I just want to let them out a little bit. I wanted to show the world the rest of me.”
Laufey recently performed on Good Morning America and talked about respecting her audience and not underestimating them.
To create a different type of sound for the album, Laufey discussed in an interview with GRAMMYS how she called on longtime music producer Aaron Dessner to help, who’s known for his collaborations with stars Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift.
“Everything else I tried felt like too much of a departure from my world. Aaron helped me bring a level of shine to the music that I was craving for this cycle,” she said.
When asked what prompted her to delve beneath the surface in her new albums, Laufey revealed her personal life had especially influenced her.
“I think I just kind of dared to write about [anxiety]. I realized it wasn’t that embarrassing. My life’s been quite crazy in the past year or two. I’ve experienced a lot more anxiety than usual, and falling in love makes you crazy,” she said.
The singer opened up about how she utilized musical dissonance in A Matter of Time.
“I try to musically depict anxiety with this noise. It’s a song about the fear of losing someone, because you’re in your own head,” she said
She expressed that many of the songs were inspired by her homeland of Iceland. The singer explained how she tried to emulate her love for Iceland in her album.
“In Iceland, I just feel so safe. I can say what I want and express what I want. It’s so isolated it feels like I’m screaming into a void when I write there, rather than having it heard by the whole world,” she said.
She hoped with this new album to expand outside the genre of jazz, she said in an interview with Billboard.
“I’m constantly thinking about classical and jazz, how to properly preserve them and pay homage. For this album,” she explains, “I just wanted to let my heart wander.”
The album was released on August 22.
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