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Laufey is a singer and songwriter originally from Iceland. She studied piano and cello as a kid. When she was 15, she was a guest soloist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. She went to Berklee College of Music in Boston, and that’s when she started writing songs. While she was still a student, she had a number one hit on Icelandic radio. Her first album debuted at number one on Billboard’s Alternative New Artist chart. Her second album, Bewitched, came out in September 2023. And for this episode, I talked to Laufey about the breakout hit from that new album: a song called “From The Start.”  

You can buy or stream “From The Start” here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

footnotes:
Bossa nova
Spencer Stewart – Producer
Pentatonic scale
Jazz standard
George Gershwin
Irving Berlin
Cole Porter

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The “Skip Intro” button first got introduced to us through Netflix in 2017, and, I know, a lot of people use it – including me. But, if I can get into old-man, back-in-my-day mode for a second, I have so much fondness for the opening theme music for so many shows. It’s a chance to set the mood for everything that you’re about to see. One of the intros that I never skip is the animated opening title sequence for Only Murders in the Building, which is a Hulu show that debuted in August 2021, and now is in its third season. It was created by Steve Martin and John Hoffman, and it stars Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez. The three of them play neighbors who live in the same building in New York, and they’re all obsessed with the same true crime podcast. And then when someone in their building gets murdered, they decide to start their own true crime podcast, and try and solve the mystery of who the killer is.

For this episode, I talked to the show’s composer, Siddhartha Khosla, about the show’s theme music. Coming up, you’ll hear a voice memo that Siddhartha recorded before he’d even heard about the show, which then led to a demo that you’ll hear, and eventually, the final theme.

You can buy or stream the Only Murders in the Building main title theme here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

footnotes:
Dan Fogelman
This is Us
Mellotron
Alan Demoss – assistant to Siddhartha Khosla
James McAlister – drummer
The National
Sufjan Stevens
Folklore and Evermore – Taylor Swift albums
Julie Monroe – editor

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It can be hard to be in a band, or really, in any kind of group where there’s creative collaboration, and you’re supposed to act like it’s a democracy. Because what do you do with an idea that you love, if nobody else believes in it? That question is a big part of this episode with Local Natives.

Local Natives is a band from Southern California. Their first album came out in 2009, but the three vocalists and songwriters in the band, Taylor Rice, Kelcey Ayer, and Ryan Hahn – they’ve been playing together since they were in high school. The lineup also includes Matthew Frazier on drums and Nik Ewing on bass. They’ve put out 5 albums, including their most recent, Time Will Wait For No One, which came out in July 2023.

But for this episode, I talked to Taylor, Kelcey, and Ryan about an older song of theirs:“Dark Days,” which came out in 2016. It’s their biggest song to date; it has over 100 million streams, and it’s been certified gold. It’s a duet with Swedish singer Nina Persson, from The Cardigans. In 2020, they put out a new version of the song, featuring Amelia Meath from the band Sylvan Esso.

I talked to the guys here in the studio, and to Amelia Meath remotely. And together, they told me the seven-year story of how the song was first made and then eventually remade.

You can buy or stream “Dark Days” here, and you can get other Local Natives music and merch here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

footnotes:
Talking Heads – “This Must Be The Place”
Fleetwood Mac – “Dreams”
Ableton Analog – synth
The Cardigans – “Lovefool”
March 2020 performance of “Dark Days” on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

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