Laufey
Lauren Kim/Courtesy of the artist
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Lauren Kim/Courtesy of the artist
Laufey
Lauren Kim/Courtesy of the artist
- “From The Begin”
- “Let You Break My Coronary heart Once more”
- “Falling Behind”
- “Bewitched”
Upon first hear, Laufey‘s easy jazz music may sound nostalgic, however make no mistake: The Icelandic 24-year-old is not some retro-revivalist who was born within the fallacious period. She’s a musician who may solely exist on this era.
Steeped in jazz and classical music since her childhood, Laufey has carried out with symphony orchestras, however she additionally writes confessional lyrics about relationship, staying out late and going by way of breakups. Think about the type of lyrics that would not be misplaced in a pop tune.
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Her mother and father gifted her a violin virtually as quickly as she may stroll, however Laufey says she did not uncover her distinctive voice till she was round 12 years previous.
“I already had fairly a low timbre in my voice at that age, and I keep in mind feeling slightly off about it,” she tells World Cafe throughout her go to to WXPN’s studios. “It did not really feel like I had a Taylor Swift or a Miley Cyrus voice. I undoubtedly had a voice that felt extra within the course of Peggy Lee or Julie London.”
Regardless of her affinity to vocalists of a bygone period, Laufey’s strategy to jazz — to not point out her thousands and thousands of TikTok followers — has helped draw youthful audiences to the style.
“Once you discover one thing that you simply like inside the realms of jazz, simply lean in and take heed to it and revel in it,” she says. “If one thing’s too complicated for you or you do not perceive it, you do not have to pressure your self to take heed to it for the sake of understanding jazz. It is identical to pop music — you hear to at least one artist, you do not prefer it; it does not imply you hate pop music as entire.”
On this session, Laufey touches extra on reaching new listeners, plus she talks about her newest album, Bewitched. It shortly adopted her 2022 debut All the pieces I Know About Love, and it has been nominated for finest conventional pop vocal album on the Grammys.
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Laufey additionally talks about collaborating with beabadoobee on the tune “A Evening To Keep in mind” and the way the pair bonded over their biracial heritages.
“There aren’t many Asian ladies within the type of singer-songwriter, indie house,” she says. “After we have been youthful, we did not have many individuals to look as much as, and we undoubtedly have a variety of Asians in our fan base, each mine and Bea’s. It is cool to see this group that I, at the very least, didn’t have rising up, come collectively.”
This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The online story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and reserving coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus. World Cafe‘s government producer is Bruce Warren.