diff --git a/beets/autotag/hooks.py b/beets/autotag/hooks.py
index fa2dad9d6..5c4ce082e 100644
--- a/beets/autotag/hooks.py
+++ b/beets/autotag/hooks.py
@@ -203,8 +203,10 @@ def _string_dist_basic(str1, str2):
     transliteration/lowering to ASCII characters. Normalized by string
     length.
     """
-    str1 = unidecode(str1)
-    str2 = unidecode(str2)
+    assert isinstance(str1, unicode)
+    assert isinstance(str2, unicode)
+    str1 = unidecode(str1).decode('ascii')
+    str2 = unidecode(str2).decode('ascii')
     str1 = re.sub(r'[^a-z0-9]', '', str1.lower())
     str2 = re.sub(r'[^a-z0-9]', '', str2.lower())
     if not str1 and not str2:
diff --git a/docs/changelog.rst b/docs/changelog.rst
index 4032d6155..43d9410b8 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.rst
+++ b/docs/changelog.rst
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ Fixes:
   respects the ``write`` config option under ``import``. If this is disabled,
   album art is no longer embedded on import in order to leave files
   untouched---in effect, ``auto`` is implicitly disabled. :bug:`1427`
+* Fix compatibility with `Jellyfish`_ version 0.5.0.
 
 
 1.3.12 (April 18, 2015)