NEON ION — Laugh Now, Cry Later

Norwegian songwriter Neon Ion, the solo project of award-winning vocalist Natalie Sandtorv, returns with her most personal and fearless album to date. Laugh Now, Cry Later is a cinematic, emotionally layered record shaped by profound life changes — sudden hearing loss during pregnancy, questions around fertility, and the decision not to walk away from music when everything seemed to be asking her to stop.

Balancing warmth and darkness, humour and grief, the album captures Sandtorv standing fully inside vulnerability while refusing to be defined by it. Across jazz-inflected soul, electronic textures and expansive, sax-driven arrangements, her voice moves not just as a narrator, but as an instrument woven deep into the music. Out 30 January on Jazzland Recordings, Laugh Now, Cry Later is not only a comeback — it’s a document of survival, transformation and joy coexisting in real time.

1. You’ve spoken about nearly quitting music after your health issues. What was the moment—or moments—that made you realise you weren’t finished yet, and that Neon Ion still had something to say?

Honestly, the day I was in the studio and wrote Laugh Now, Cry Later with my co-writer. I tried to cancel the session, because I had this week where life was really making it hard. I said point blank to Ivan Blomqvist that I was quitting music, and he, used to my dramatic demeanor, just ignored me and said I should just stop by for a hang. And so he showed me these chords, and next thing I know I was infused. I think we wrote the whole thing in just a couple of hours.

2. Losing hearing in one ear while pregnant is such a profound physical and emotional shift. How did that change the way you listen to sound now, and how did it reshape the way you use your voice on Laugh Now, Cry Later?

It was a complete shock, physically, emotionally, artistically. Sudden Deafness doesn’t just take sound away; it distorts what’s left. Everything became too loud, too sharp, almost aggressive. For weeks I walked around with earplugs, and going to shows felt unbearable. I cried constantly. It felt like my relationship with sound, and with music, had turned against me.

But then something incredible happened. The brain recalibrates. It rewires itself. Slowly, without me really noticing at first, my perception started to shift. The sounds were still there, but my brain stopped bracing itself against them.

Now, more than before, I need to trust my body and my muscle memory because sometimes the band is playing so loud that I lose a bit of control. And it also brought up a huge fear, that I’d somehow become a “bad singer,” that people would listen and think, oh yeah, poor her, she lost it. My biggest fear was losing my intonation, losing control.

So I did the only thing I could think of: I went back to school. I started taking singing lessons with this incredible vocal guru, Siri Torjesen. We went deep, really nerdy, technical work around breath, placement, tuning, micro-adjustments. It wasn’t about fixing something that was broken, but about rebuilding trust in my voice from the inside out. And honestly, it’s been amazing, not just to recover, but to grow.

3. The album title suggests holding humour and pain at the same time. How important was irony—or even dark humour—as a survival tool while making this record?

Dark humour was absolutely a survival tool. I’ve always had that kind of humour, and so do my friends. One of the most heart-warming things during that time was watching how they showed up for me. They didn’t try to rush me out of the sadness, first we all just sat there and let it be heavy. But pretty quickly, the jokes started. Sometimes about my hearing, sometimes about the absurdity of it all. And strangely, that helped me adapt faster.

Because these are the people I share music and life with, everything blurred together, band, friends, family. We’d be sad for a moment, then laugh at something completely inappropriate, and then record a take. That rhythm, grief, humour, and love, carried the album to the finish line.

4. There’s a strong sense on this album that your voice isn’t just telling the story, but moving inside the music like an instrument. Was that a conscious decision, or something that emerged naturally as you rebuilt your relationship with sound?

Oh, that means a lot, because I’ve never seen myself only as the front person or the narrator, I’ve always wanted my voice to function as an instrument inside the band, something that moves, supports, and responds rather than sitting on top of everything.

I listen to a lot of instrumental jazz, John and Alice Coltrane especially, and I’ve always been a little jealous of that world, of how musicians comp for each other, how the music breathes collectively without anyone needing to be the centre of the soundscape. That idea of interplay has always stayed with me.

5. You’ve described this record as your most personal yet also freer and more playful. Looking back now that it’s finished, what does making Laugh Now, Cry Later represent in your life beyond the music itself?

The album really feels like a time capsule of the last four years of my life. It marks that quiet but undeniable shift into adulthood, learning that growth isn’t a straight, upward line, and that you can move forward while still feeling lost, scared, or unsure.

During that time I went through some very real challenges, especially around postponing pregnancy to prioritise my career, and then suddenly being confronted with the fear that maybe I’d waited too long. There was a lot of panic, grief, and letting go of expectations. And then, almost unbelievably, I became pregnant right before we were supposed to start IVF.

So the album holds some of the hardest moments of my life, but also some of the most miraculous ones. Having Iris changed everything, it’s the biggest thing that has ever happened to me. Beyond the music, this record will always be a reminder of that period: of uncertainty, resilience, humour, fear, joy, all existing at the same time. In that way, it’s not just an album to me. It’s a memory I get to carry forever.