AOTW - Laufey: Bewitched TGE | diego.fm

Bewitched: The Goddess Edition

Greetings to anyone in the audience, this is uncharted waters I am playing in with starting this endeavor. To preface this, I listen to music quite a lot, but I’ve never really made my thoughts or musings on them public, other than some off conversations with a friend or so. However, since purchasing this domain that you have reached my words from (still shocked and baffled diego.fm was even available), I figured I’d do a bit more than just redirect to my last.fm page. I mulled on it for a day or so until I finally decided to make something of a blog or so, serving some review-style content of music I’ve listened to. Some trials, tribulations, and lack of web formatting knowledge later (I severely apologize to chrome users for how absolutely atrocious the site looks, I’ll figure it out eventually), we have come to the first iteration of this log.

And also for the record, if you are displeased by the waffling, bear in mind these logs are much like my thoughts: jumbled, extraneous, and much like the annoying part of the online recipe for shakshuka you have to skip before you realize you don’t have cumin in the pantry. With that in mind, I’d like to shift the focus to the honorary inaugural subject of this journal: Laufey.

Full disclosure, I actually had not heard of her until I saw my brother ask for my cassette player, which kind of made me turn my head and peek at what he bought. That happened to be the cassette release of Laufey’s Bewitched: The Goddess Edition. It puzzled me mainly as I hadn’t taken my brother as someone to skim more than the surface music-wise, and after listening to the record for the first time that day, it’s unsurprising that he enjoyed it enough to purchase a physical edition.

Right from the beginning and all the way to the closing minutes, Jónsdóttir envelops the listener in warm and nigh-bewitching instrumentation accompanied by her sultry vocals which are topped only by her writing on the record, which feels deeply personal while also remaining relatable for anyone who has ever loved and lost.

Sonically, I was quickly feeling reminiscent notes of Norah Jones as the profile matched rather well (unsurprisingly, I learned later that the two collaborated in 2023 for a Christmas album). Starting off slightly whimsically and tastefully vintage with Dreamer, Laufey leads right in with the overarching theme of rejection and feeling crestfallen, as she details the emotions of a relationship that fell through. This is seen as soon as the second track, Second Best, where she establishes the feeling of regret for someone she felt did not reciprocate the love she felt for them. As someone who has personally been in that situation before, the track really did touch on those certain feelings in a way that felt genuine and was beautifully intertwined with the soft guitar melody accompaniment.

Interjecting that for a moment, a lot of my enjoyment of this record (besides the objective brilliance and quality of the album) is Laufey’s ability to almost tap right into a lot of emotions I have felt personally. I am sure I’m far from the first person to relate to the album personally, but I suppose that I have come across Bewitched at probably the correct time where the words and melodies have much more gravity with me now than it would have maybe in the past.

Switching lanes into the realm of objectivity, Laufey shows a strong grasp of the lounge jazz sub-genre with the production of the record from back to front, sprinkled with traditional orchestration here and there for fantastic effect (see: California and Me). It sets a stage for the listener to be captured in what I can only describe as watching a stage play with your ears. The mixing and the production on the record gave me the feeling of a large concert Hall. Which, if that was the intended outcome, it was executed perfectly. The gentle transitions between the tracks create a both loosely-woven and tight-knit listening experience as you make your way through the 18-song track list (which is the main difference between this and the original September 2023 release of Bewitched, which was 14 songs long).

Focusing on the extra addendum of tracks exclusive to The Goddess Edition (Bored, Trouble, It Could Happen To You, and Goddess), they are kind of weaker additions that, in my opinion, don’t add a whole lot to what was already a very cohesive project already.

Synthesizing all of these jumbled thoughts, I thoroughly enjoyed my time listening to Bewitched. While I felt it may have stumbled a little at the end with the extra additions, I still feel like that’s simply just turbulence in what was overall a smooth and enjoyable listening experience. I feel like it might be corny and whatever to employ a scoring system but I’ll tentatively start with a /5 system since it’s simple enough to understand.

With that all noted, I feel like Bewitched warrants the inaugural score of 3.5/5. I wouldn’t go too far to say it was one of the more groundbreaking musical experiences of my life but it is enjoyable and sincere enough to come close to it. I eagerly anticipate her next project and will probably find myself digging through her back catalog after this.

Until next week!

Yours,

(If you want to suggest me something I haven’t listened to before, feel free to fire me a note thru my social channels or [email protected])

“…you walked a little faster, left me behind,

kissed me with somebody else in mind…”

[second best, 0:30]