“The 14 songs on the 24-year-old Icelandic singer and cellist’s debut album were made for that kind of unrestrained romance, one that feels like it can only be found in the golden rom-coms of the past and the crackles of jazz records — one that she wants to bring back for her generation.” – NME

Fans of LA-based artist Laufey (affectionately known as Lauvers) can rejoice as the composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist has today released her highly anticipated album Bewitched, out via AWAL.

To celebrate the release, this Sunday September 10, fans from across the world are invited to enjoy “A Very Laufey Day”—a curated “Laufey-inspired day” tailored to their city. Fans will be encouraged to go out and complete various hand-picked activities, alongside a broader checklist that can be completed anywhere in the world. Every activity is matched to a song on the album paired with a prompt and pulled through to a central gallery housed on https://averylaufeyday.com/.

Today the Chinese-Icelandic native has unveiled her latest single ‘Lovesick’ – watch the visualiser here

Laufey is still drawing from jazz and classical music on Bewitched, with cuts like the smoldering string-assisted ballad ‘Promise’, the tender ‘Letter To My 13 Year Old Self’, and teaming up with London-based Philharmonia Orchestra on ‘California and Me’. Other moments, like the forceful rhythms of ‘Lovesick’ and the drones lurking in the background of ‘Haunted’, reveal an expansion of her musical palette, while the lyrics speak to her ever-growing cache of personal and professional memories. “I had all these new life experiences and thoughts and things that I was going through at the time, and I just ended up writing a lot,” she recalls. The album’s breakaway hit single, ‘From The Start’ has seen a meteoric rise since its release. It topped 1 million streams in less than 24 hours upon release and continues to garner 1.75 million streams per day across DSPs, with 120 million global streams to date. ‘From The Start’ is currently the most streamed jazz song in the world.

Laufey (pronounced lāy-vāy) is looking to bridge the gap between the past and the present, the history books and social media, the Reykjavik concert hall Harpa and the Los Angeles rock dive Troubadour, by writing, recording, and performing songs that are truly timeless, inspired by jazz greats and classical masters while possessing a point of view that could only be conveyed by a 21st-century twentysomething. Laufey explains, “As a musician, my goal is to bring jazz and classical music to my generation through a more accessible road.”

Raised between Reykjavík and Washington, D.C. with annual visits to Beijing, the Icelandic-Chinese artist grew up playing cello as well as piano and became hooked on the jazz standards of Ella Fitzgerald after digging through her father’s record collection. In 2020, while still a student at Berklee College of Music, Laufey released her debut single “Street by Street,” which went on to top the Icelandic radio charts. Following the release of her 2021 Typical of Me EP, Laufey was named Best New Artist in Jazz and Blues at the Icelandic Music Awards and hosted her own show on BBC Radio 3/BBC Sounds. Laufey’s 2022 debut full-length, Everything I Know About Love reached #1 on Billboard’s Alternative New Artist Album chart, and she was the most streamed jazz artist on Spotify that year. Today, she has over 700 million streams across all platforms and is the biggest streaming artist from Iceland in the world.