At LMC Home Entertainment, we believe that part of the joy of owning great hi-fi is also about discovering great music. Rather than revisiting the usual audiophile favorites, our Album of the Month spotlights exceptional recordings that deserve a place in every listening room.
A Spell Worth Falling Under
October calls for something a little enchanted. Bewitched, the second album from Icelandic singer-songwriter Laufey, is a candlelit record — jazz-standard phrasing, chamber strings and bossa nova, sung by a voice that sounds as if it wandered in from another decade. Released on September 8, 2023, it won the Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards.
Who Is Laufey?
Laufey Lín Bing Jónsdóttir was born in Reykjavík on April 23, 1999, to an Icelandic father and a mother from Guangzhou, China, who is a classical violinist. Music was the family language. She began piano at four and cello at eight, and at fifteen she performed as a cello soloist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. She went on to Berklee College of Music on a presidential scholarship, graduating in 2021. Her heroes are Ella Fitzgerald and Chet Baker, and you can hear both in the way she sings: unhurried, conversational and intimate. Her twin sister, violinist Júnía, serves as her creative director.
The Album
Fourteen songs, just over 48 minutes. Laufey produced Bewitched with Spencer Stewart, with Dan Wilson producing "Promise," and the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Robin O'Neill, playing on "California and Me" and the closing title track. The record moves easily between swooning orchestral ballads, a solo piano nocturne and sunlit bossa nova, all held together by that low, velvet voice.
Standout Songs
"Dreamer" opens the album the way a spell should: with close, layered vocal harmonies in the style of the Chordettes, the 1950s quartet famous for barbershop-style close harmony. Laufey stacks her own voice into a vintage girl-group choir before the song settles into a gently swaying, bittersweet shuffle, with Simon Moullier's vibraphone glinting underneath.
"From the Start" is a playful bossa nova and the song that introduced many listeners to her. It was the most streamed jazz song of 2023 and is certified double Platinum by the RIAA.
"Promise" is the album's most exposed moment, a hushed, heartbreaking confession that one reviewer compared to Debussy.
"California and Me" brings in the Philharmonia Orchestra for a sweeping, cinematic arrangement, and "Bewitched" closes the record in a swell of strings.
Why It Shines on a High-End System
Bewitched is built from real instruments and real voices, and that is exactly what a great system is made to reproduce. On "Dreamer," those stacked harmonies separate into individual voices instead of a single blur, each with its own place across the soundstage. Vibraphone notes ring and decay naturally into silence. When the Philharmonia rises on "California and Me," the strings have genuine scale and texture without crowding the voice at the center of the stage.
Laufey also sings softly and close, which makes this a wonderful test of low-level detail: the breath before a phrase, the shape of a vowel, the moment a note fades. It is a record that sounds pleasant anywhere, and quietly spectacular on a system that can resolve it.
An Arizona Connection
Laufey's love of orchestral music reaches beyond her own records. Through The Laufey Foundation, which supports young musicians with a particular focus on youth orchestras, $1 from every ticket sold on her A Matter of Time Tour went to the foundation. When the tour reached Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale on September 23, 2025, students from the Phoenix Youth Symphony Orchestras performed a cover of her song "Lover Girl." As a thank-you, Desert Diamond Arena donated $2,000 to the Phoenix Youth Symphony Orchestras in Laufey's name, and every student received a ticket to her show. It is a small, lovely reminder that the next generation of Valley musicians is listening, too.
Pour something warm, dim the lights and let her cast the spell. That's why Bewitched is LMC Home Entertainment's Album of the Month for October 2026.
More Albums of the Month
Read: Album of the Month — September 2026: Σtella
Read: Album of the Month — August 2026: Gorillaz
Read: Album of the Month — July 2026: Fatoumata Diawara
