awfultune

Layla Eden (known musically as awfultune), is nothing short of a resplendent musical mirror of her own human experience. Floating a few covers through the SoundCloud stratosphere circa 2017, Eden promptly adorned themself with the “awfultune” moniker, believing their efforts would fall on deaf ears. Wrong she was. In 2022, she now touts over three million monthly listeners on Spotify—officially evolving out of indie bedroom-pop obscurity.

Born and bred in upstate New York, Eden’s musical evolution is intrinsically entwined with their own adapting identity. From plaintive to sweetly serene, their chromatic catalog of dreamlike compositions has succinctly echoed their transition from male to female—becoming who she’s always been. She is both an austere champion of the LGBTQIA+ community and a perennial advocate for anyone who’s simply felt alone or estranged from themself. While rife with reverie and emotional complexity, an awfultune original prides itself on its minimalism.

For Eden, the narrative is usually upfront and center. A dazzling emblem of this story-centric ideal is their impassioned, quintessential offering of 2019, “I Met Sarah in the Bathroom.” More rooted in emotional truth than reality, Sarah represents Eden’s bolder, uninhibited alter ego. More than anything, the song is a love letter to themself. Now, having amassed over 400 million global streams, their catalog is a thrilling culmination of their story so far. With their album eden, afwultune takes listeners on a rainbow-fueled journey chronicling their experiences of transition and embracement of the LGBTQIA+ community—and they show no signs of slowing.