Laufey's new album, 'A Matter of Time,' explores anger, love and more

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Long before the Icelandic Chinese artist Laufey became recognized the world over for her neoclassical jazz-meets-pop music, she was a student, answering a familiar yearbook prompt: “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?”

Her answer: Move to the U.S., sign a record deal and win a Grammy. The 26-year-old has done all three.

“I must have been so confident to write that because I remember that being a very far-sought kind of thing,” the musician born Laufey Lín Jónsdóttir told The Associated Press.

Those aren't her only accomplishments: She's collaborated with Barbra Streisand, shared the stage with Hozier, Noah Kahan and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. An unexpected nonconformist to the rules of contemporary pop, Laufey's third album, “A Matter of Time” out Friday, pulls inspiration from country and Icelandic folk music as well as classical and bossa nova sounds.

“My ultimate goal is to introduce young audiences to jazz music, to classical music, to encourage them to learn instruments and explore their own sound,” Laufey said.

In a recent interview, Laufey discussed her new album, embracing anger on the record, working with her twin sister and more. Responses are edited for clarity and brevity.

LAUFEY: I knew I wanted the album to have time as a central theme. I was just so fascinated by how it’s kind of like this one thing that humans have no control over, and sometimes we want to speed up and sometimes we want to slow down, but ultimately it’s out of our control. And there’s something romantic about that to me.

Now its taken on a little bit of a different meaning in that it’s basically me baring my soul to the world and baring my soul to a lover. And it’s kind of like, “a matter of time until you find out everything about me.”

LAUFEY: For sure. I think I was never allowed to embrace anger. I was a very good kid growing up. I was very polite and very quiet. I used this as a way to show that you can be angry, and rather, to show also that you can be both a soft, spoken person while still harboring anger.

I think the understanding of women and characters has so much been like one or the other. She’s like this, she’s a mad woman, she a soft, sweet woman. Like, we’re all everything.

This is just the most free I’ve been. I wasn't following any type of compass in that I wasn't trying to create something as education. I was more so just making music from the heart. I just approached with a whole lot more confidence, even though the album’s all about anxiety and learning about oneself and insecurity and delusion. And it’s tapping into emotions that I maybe wouldn’t have dared to tap into before. It is the most confident I’ve been, because I don’t think I’d have the confidence to put out the music in this album before.

LAUFEY: It’s so special. We do everything together. Like, she does everything, pretty much, — other than the music, the literal music making — she has her hands in.

All the merch, that’s all her. The album covers, all the creative, like, music videos, everything — she’s such a part of the project. And then she literally plays violin on some of the songs. I know so many artists who talk about how it can be quite lonely, but I’ve never really been alone. Like, I’ve always done it in tandem with my sister.

LAUFEY: I grew up in a very, very different, like, homogenous Icelandic community. I didn’t see people who looked like me every single day. I saw my mom, that was it. And I guess I saw my identical twin sister, who looked exactly like me. But it’s so powerful, seeing someone who looks like you, that you can look up to.

I already see more representation, but there’s still such a long way to go. I’m still a half-white Asian woman, you know? And I don’t want young Asian women to look up and see all of the stars in front of them be half-White either, because what kind of message is that sending? So, I don't know. Anything I can do to lift up voices, create those communities, and empower young Asian artists to do their thing, that's, like, at the center of my philosophy.

LAUFEY: I’d love to score a film or do, like, a theme song to a film, preferably a James Bond theme song, because that’s, like, my dream. But it’s so hard to say because I’ve ticked off all those simple things off — many are big, but the tick-able ones. I hope I’m still making music and I still hope that I love it.

Laufey poses for a portrait on Thursday, July 24, 2025, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP)

Laufey poses for a portrait on Thursday, July 24, 2025, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP)

Laufey poses for a portrait on Thursday, July 24, 2025, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP)

Laufey poses for a portrait on Thursday, July 24, 2025, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP)

Laufey poses for a portrait on Thursday, July 24, 2025, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP)

Federal immigration agents deployed to Minneapolis have used aggressive crowd-control tactics that have become a dominant concern in the aftermath of the deadly shooting of a woman in her car last week.

They have pointed rifles at demonstrators and deployed chemical irritants early in confrontations. They have broken vehicle windows and pulled occupants from cars. They have scuffled with protesters and shoved them to the ground.

The government says the actions are necessary to protect officers from violent attacks. The encounters in turn have riled up protesters even more, especially as videos of the incidents are shared widely on social media.

What is unfolding in Minneapolis reflects a broader shift in how the federal government is asserting its authority during protests, relying on immigration agents and investigators to perform crowd-management roles traditionally handled by local police who often have more training in public order tactics and de-escalating large crowds.

Experts warn the approach runs counter to de-escalation standards and risks turning volatile demonstrations into deadly encounters.

The confrontations come amid a major immigration enforcement surge ordered by the Trump administration in early December, which sent more than 2,000 officers from across the Department of Homeland Security into the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Many of the officers involved are typically tasked with arrests, deportations and criminal investigations, not managing volatile public demonstrations.

Tensions escalated after the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman killed by an immigration agent last week, an incident federal officials have defended as self-defense after they say Good weaponized her vehicle.

The killing has intensified protests and scrutiny of the federal response.

On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota asked a federal judge to intervene, filing a lawsuit on behalf of six residents seeking an emergency injunction to limit how federal agents operate during protests, including restrictions on the use of chemical agents, the pointing of firearms at non-threatening individuals and interference with lawful video recording.

“There’s so much about what’s happening now that is not a traditional approach to immigration apprehensions,” said former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldaña.

Saldaña, who left the post at the beginning of 2017 as President Donald Trump's first term began, said she can't speak to how the agency currently trains its officers. When she was director, she said officers received training on how to interact with people who might be observing an apprehension or filming officers, but agents rarely had to deal with crowds or protests.

“This is different. You would hope that the agency would be responsive given the evolution of what’s happening — brought on, mind you, by the aggressive approach that has been taken coming from the top,” she said.

Ian Adams, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of South Carolina, said the majority of crowd-management or protest training in policing happens at the local level — usually at larger police departments that have public order units.

“It’s highly unlikely that your typical ICE agent has a great deal of experience with public order tactics or control,” Adams said.

DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a written statement that ICE officer candidates receive extensive training over eight weeks in courses that include conflict management and de-escalation. She said many of the candidates are military veterans and about 85% have previous law enforcement experience.

“All ICE candidates are subject to months of rigorous training and selection at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, where they are trained in everything from de-escalation tactics to firearms to driving training. Homeland Security Investigations candidates receive more than 100 days of specialized training," she said.

Ed Maguire, a criminology professor at Arizona State University, has written extensively about crowd-management and protest- related law enforcement training. He said while he hasn't seen the current training curriculum for ICE officers, he has reviewed recent training materials for federal officers and called it “horrifying.”

Maguire said what he's seeing in Minneapolis feels like a perfect storm for bad consequences.

“You can't even say this doesn't meet best practices. That's too high a bar. These don't seem to meet generally accepted practices,” he said.

“We’re seeing routinely substandard law enforcement practices that would just never be accepted at the local level,” he added. “Then there seems to be just an absence of standard accountability practices.”

Adams noted that police department practices have "evolved to understand that the sort of 1950s and 1960s instinct to meet every protest with force, has blowback effects that actually make the disorder worse.”

He said police departments now try to open communication with organizers, set boundaries and sometimes even show deference within reason. There's an understanding that inside of a crowd, using unnecessary force can have a domino effect that might cause escalation from protesters and from officers.

Despite training for officers responding to civil unrest dramatically shifting over the last four decades, there is no nationwide standard of best practices. For example, some departments bar officers from spraying pepper spray directly into the face of people exercising Constitutional speech. Others bar the use of tear gas or other chemical agents in residential neighborhoods.

Regardless of the specifics, experts recommend that departments have written policies they review regularly.

“Organizations and agencies aren’t always familiar with what their own policies are,” said Humberto Cardounel, senior director of training and technical assistance at the National Policing Institute.

“They go through it once in basic training then expect (officers) to know how to comport themselves two years later, five years later," he said. "We encourage them to understand and know their training, but also to simulate their training.”

Adams said part of the reason local officers are the best option for performing public order tasks is they have a compact with the community.

“I think at the heart of this is the challenge of calling what ICE is doing even policing,” he said.

"Police agencies have a relationship with their community that extends before and after any incidents. Officers know we will be here no matter what happens, and the community knows regardless of what happens today, these officers will be here tomorrow.”

Saldaña noted that both sides have increased their aggression.

“You cannot put yourself in front of an armed officer, you cannot put your hands on them certainly. That is impeding law enforcement actions,” she said.

“At this point, I’m getting concerned on both sides — the aggression from law enforcement and the increasingly aggressive behavior from protesters.”

Law enforcement officers at the scene of a reported shooting Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

Federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

People cover tear gas deployed by federal immigration officers outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

A man is pushed to the ground as federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A woman covers her face from tear gas as federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)