Lo eh veh. Or Lo eu veh. Or LOI-vay.
Not Laffey, please, as many of us likely
mispronounced her name once we
became aware of this young Icelandic
sensation bringing what sounded like
standard vocal jazz to the world of pop.
Right next door to k.d. lang in the stacks,
a comparison seems appropriate. While
the quality of their voices is different,
there’s a vibe or tone in their music
that is surprisingly complimentary,
occupying similar territory, torch-like,
buttery, cool, sensual, crooning, although
Laufey is more likely to swing than k.d.
Oddly enough, my son turned me on
to her music, a boy who’s more likely
to listen to hardcore screamo math rock
or progressive fusion than he is to enjoy
vocal jazz. I like to think I shared with
him an openness to a wide variety of
musical genres–but he might be even
more open than I am. But I am fascinated
and heartened by Laufey’s appeal for
young listeners. She’s beautiful, sure,
but she’s also tremendously skilled
and exudes authenticity. I’m two albums
in, Everything I Know About Love from 2022,
and the 2024, Grammy winning, Bewitched.
She won another Grammy in 2026 for
A Matter of Time, an album I don’t have.
Yet. And I hesitated, not because I have
any doubt about its goodness, but
because she does a thing and she does
it really well, and that’s kind of what
she does. I’m sure I would enjoy more
of that, but I’m not convinced I need
it permanently in the collection.
I just wish she’d throw more curveballs.
My favorite moment on Everything is
the title track, because unlike most of her
stuff, it kind of rocks, has a “Bennie and
the Jets” groove going on–and displays
her sense of humor in this mostly
slow, mostly sad music. Apparently,
everything she knows about love
turns out to be not much, a theme
she will continue playing with on
Bewitched. Her lyrics are clever, sometimes
funny, but there’s a consistency in
the romantic subject matter that can
be kind of tiresome. Again, the surprising
moments on Bewitched are the ones
that rock a little harder or the ones
with the super lush orchestration.
It feels to me like new old music, even
though there’s only one standard on
the album, a faithful cover of “Misty,”
but I imagine to young listeners it just
sounds new and almost subversive.
They will find out, though, sooner or
later, that she did not invent this kind
of music, and whole worlds will open up.
Laufey is doing a good service for the kids.
Notes on the vinyl editions:
- Everything I Know About Love, AWAL Recordings, 2024, black vinyl.
- Bewitched, AWAL Recordings, 2026, The Goddess Edition, double blue vinyl, mastered at 45 RPM. This practice of mastering a LP record at 45 RPM is kind of an audiophile move, the idea is that with less music per side, a faster playback speed, and more space between the grooves, you’ll have a superior listening experience. Maybe. I find my copy of this album to be prone to noise and some distortion here and there. Aggravating.
In case you don’t already know: I’m listening to almost everything in my vinyl collection, A to Z, and writing at least one, sometimes two or three long skinny poem-like-things in response for each artist, and on a few occasions, writing a long skinny poem-like-thing in response to more than one artist. As a poet and a student of poetry, I understand that these things look like poems, but they don’t really sound much like poetry, hence, I call them “poem-like-things.” I’ll admit that they’re just long, skinny essays that veer every now and then into the poetic or lyric.
michael jarmer 