Laufey - Bewitched

Anyone familiar with Laufey’s releases to date will already know how this record sounds. The singer and cellist has a firm commitment to introducing jazz and classical music to her peers, and much like last year’s debut ‘Everything I Know About Love’, ‘Bewitched’ is stuffed full of immaculate jazz ballads, shot through with luscious strings and swooning stories of hopeless love. ‘Dreamer’ opens the album with Chordettes-style vocal harmonies leading into a bittersweet shuffle, while ‘Second Best’ follows with a stripped-back arrangement more akin to Mary Ford’s duets with Les Paul. But more unites these two tracks than divides them, and the rest of the album continues in their precedent. There are exceptions – ‘From The Start’, a peppy bossa nova track, shows Laufey in a more playful light, while ‘Promise’ bears likeness both to Debussy at his most striking and St Vincent at her most restrained. These are precious moments, and the album could stand to bear more of the inventiveness that was so rife on her debut, but Laufey’s crystalline voice and effortless charisma make this album into a gorgeous display of a unique talent.