“There are so many more layers to my emotion”: how Laufey defied expectations on her third album ‘A Matter Of Time’

“There are so many more layers to my emotion; I am not just this soft-spoken artist with no opinions,” Laufey tells NME over mint tea on a balmy summer afternoon in central London. “I possess rage, anxiety, anger and delusion.”

The Los Angeles-based, Icelandic-Chinese star has just touched down in the city to perform a handful of intimate previews of her third album, ‘A Matter Of Time’, when we meet her in a bustling townhouse restaurant. She’s seated in the middle of a red dining booth with her head buried in her phone as we approach, before her eyes dart up attentively and she scooches over to greet us with a hug. “Sorry, I’m in the middle of releasing a song!” she laughs, her swooning new single ‘Lover Girl’ being keenly received by fans as we speak.

For the past five years, Laufey Lín Jónsdóttir has been ascending to superstardom with her waltzing jazz-pop ballads that intertwine classical instrumentals with candid lyricism mined from the Gen-Z experience. In the two years alone since NME interviewed a fast-ascending Laufey for The Cover, she’s performed a sold-out night at the Royal Albert Hall, attended the Met Gala alongside Hollywood’s biggest stars and even picked up a Grammy for her spellbinding second album ‘Bewitched’. Next up, she’s taking on arenas when she embarks on a North American tour this autumn, which includes two huge nights at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

But as she heads into this next chapter, Laufey is preparing for fans to see a very different side to her. “There are parts of me that come out in this album that I didn’t dare to put out in the last few,” she admits. Indeed, ‘A Matter Of Time’ turns any pre-conceptions of poise and grace on their head to reveal that she can be devilish (‘Silver Lining’), cynical (‘Mr. Eclectic’) and insecure (‘Snow White’), not to mention downright pissed off, as she seethes on the particularly revealing ‘Tough Luck’: “I’ll break it first, I’ve had enough / Of waiting ‘til you lie and cheat / Just like you did to the actress before me”.

While there’s still plenty of Laufey Land magic to be found – twinkling orchestrals, old-timey glamour and witty storytelling – things progressively sour and spoil into an anti-fairytale. “The way the album’s sequenced is it starts with this hope and a little bit of fear of love – it’s a first date,” Laufey explains. “And then as the album progresses, it falls more and more into anxiety, and falls apart.” As for the title, it’s not quite the modern-day Cinderella story that it sounds like – quite the opposite, actually: “It’s kind of like, it’s a matter of time until you find out who I truly am.”

With two decades of classical musical education behind her – including a degree from the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts – Laufey has spent her whole life striving for perfection. She practised piano and cello with her classical violinist mother throughout her childhood, and in her early teens, discovered her deep vocal timbre could replicate jazz greats like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. Ever since she released her debut single ‘Street By Street’ back in 2020, she’s laid out her plans to bring jazz to a new generation. When viral singles like ‘From The Start’ and ‘Falling Behind’ started catching momentum online, that dream soon became a reality.

But as listeners were left spellbound by Laufey’s romanticised tales of love and heartbreak, she didn’t always feel like there was room for more complex feelings. “I think when it comes to women, [people either see] a soft woman or an angry woman, there’s no in between,” she posits. “But really, most women I know are soft and angry in the same 24-hour cycle, and I wanted this album to express that.”

That intention is felt throughout ‘A Matter Of Time’, which crescendos with a “musical scream” of grating strings, dissonant piano notes and a doomy drumbeat on the ominous final track ‘Sabotage’, as Laufey warns a lover to brace for her “cold, bloody, bitter sabotage”. Describing it as a song that throws the soft ideal of her “into the fire”, it’s a far cry from the artist who swooned over the boy who “bewitched me from the first time that you kissed me” on her last album.

“Sometimes being a role model is just owning your own emotions and telling people how it is”

Shattering the facade of civility was an exercise in getting Laufey out of her comfort zone, something which becomes infinitely more challenging when your fanbase is growing larger by the minute. “There’s imminently more people to please,” she says of the conundrum. “It was something that I was a little bit scared of when I started, but ultimately it kind of faded away. Because I realised that I have no way of guaranteeing what other people will like, but I can guarantee that I like it.”

In search of collaborators to guide her through this bold new chapter alongside longtime collaborator Spencer Stewart, Laufey instantly gelled with The National’s Aaron Dessner, who’s gained a reputation among pop fans for nurturing the introspective side to artists like Taylor Swift and Gracie Abrams.

“You can always tell when it’s an Aaron Dessner-produced track. I was so curious to hear what that would sound like with my music,” Laufey says. “He really challenged me in a different way to think outside the box.” Their musical synergy can perhaps be put down to the fact that, like Laufey and her sister Junia, Aaron is also an identical twin with his brother Bryce Dessner. Even more kismet was the discovery that the four of them all share a birthday. “We were like, ‘How crazy is this?’”

Finding new peers in industry veterans has been a recurring privilege for Laufey these past few years. She had the honour of appearing on Barbra Streisand’s ‘The Secrets Of Life: Partners, Volume 2’ collaboration album back in June, which also featured songs with Paul McCartney and Mariah Carey. The opportunity came about when the album’s producer and Laufey’s new friend Peter Asher secretly showed the EGOT-winning music legend her song ‘Letter To My 13 Year Old Self’, which she loved so much that she wanted to record a new duet. “She immediately resonated with it, or so I heard,” Laufey grins.

When she’s not rubbing shoulders with music icons and selling out tours, Laufey is thinking about the next generation, having launched her own youth music foundation to make music and orchestral programmes more accessible. “Arts funding is being slashed so much; music education is a luxury good now, and it makes me so sad,” she says thoughtfully. “There are so many young musicians out there who can’t afford lessons, or can’t afford to have their talents fostered, that are some of the greatest stars of the future.”

It’s not lost on Laufey that she could have a real positive influence on young people, but that can also get a little tricky when you’re about to put out your most unflattering album yet. “I think I always felt a little bit of a duty to be this perfect role model to my audience,” Laufey reasons. “And though I of course still am that, I realised that I don’t always have to tell everyone that everything’s going to be OK to be a role model. Sometimes being a role model is just owning your own emotions and telling people how it is.”

Laufey’s new album ‘A Matter Of Time’ is out August 22 via Vingolf Recordings/AWAL.

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