Nilüfer Yanya – ‘My Methodology Actor’: cautious, artistic songwriting

Nilüfer Yanya has at all times been an intriguing songwriter. On her debut album ‘Miss Universe’, her genre-spanning songs have been threaded collectively by Black Mirror-inspired voice notes, with eerie clips hooked round a fictional well being firm known as “WWayHealth” (We Fear About Your Well being). Making a narrative across the document by way of this ominous organisation who promised to “fear about you so that you don’t must”, the messages additionally acted as a throughline, piecing collectively the musically diversified document. In the meantime its follow-up ‘Painless’ noticed Yanya draw on extra leftfield influences (like t.A.T.u.) and fuse them with – as NME stated on the time – “Nirvana-style murk and jerky, Bloc Get together fashion post-punk”.

Third album, ‘My Methodology Actor’, as soon as once more distils the London singer-songwriter’s creativity: constructing blocks of percolating beats, wiry guitar licks, lashings of grunge and plush hovering vocal melodies all accompany Yanya’s ruminative lyrics. The document noticed her work solely with Wilma Archer (Sudan Archives, Celeste), a longtime collaborator who additionally labored on her earlier two data. The duo, Yanya has defined in a press release, stored the workforce for the venture small with the intention to “not dilute [the album and songwriting process] in any manner, even when it’s coming from insecurity – ‘oh is that this good?’”

The outcomes of this stripped-back artistic circle are a set of artfully and intentionally crafted tunes, albeit one which’s lacking the dusting of euphoric pop her debut boasted (à la driving earworm ‘Child Blu’ and the Kelis-inspired ‘Warmth Rises’). They’re songs that really feel like they’ve been written with a razor focus, every instrumental line enjoying a function. It’s maybe overly thought-about at occasions (the sleepy ‘Made Out Of Reminiscence’, for instance, may very well be elevated with a splash of spontaneity), however largely the sheer songwriting drive wins out, aided by Yanya’s considerate lyricism.

Take ‘Name It Love’, a mirrored image on difficult relationship dynamics that sees Yanya sing, “Nonetheless Ironic/Nonetheless I need it/Nonetheless alone!”, later concluding with the sincere couplet: “Some name it love/I name it disgrace”. The complicated isolation of the monitor is echoed musically by a buzzing, overdriven riff, the considerably jarring sonics juxtaposed over the tune’s different lilting instrumentals.

In the meantime, trip-hop sensibilities and jittering Strokes-infused guitars come to a head on ‘Mutations’, a driving reduce that sees Yanya chew over “the delicate change that occurs continuously as tens of millions of tiny selections and actions form your being”. These small shifts are echoed within the association of the tune, instrumental traces and preparations delicately altering, cinematic strings ebbing right here, beats skittering there.

There are earworms too, within the type of the quick and candy opening tune ‘Preserve On Dancing’, and the killer, grungy-chorus-boasting ‘Like I Say (I Runaway)’. The latter is a damning evaluation of the inevitable passage of time and the way it ticks by too rapidly, with Yanya musing: “Does it really feel like all you will have/Is put in black and white?/The minute I’m not in management/I’m tearing up inside”.

It’s a document that spins the rising aches and pains of your twenties – and the realisations and selections that come throughout these occasions – by means of Yanya’s musical world. And whereas ‘My Methodology Actor’ is fastidiously crafted and will fall into the entice of being unduly deliberated, Yanya {couples} these particulars with moments of eye watering vulnerability (take ‘Wingspan’, the place she sings: “You don’t get to be devoted/Now you’re useless to me”). An sincere, revolutionary assortment that bolsters her repute as a stellar songwriter, Yanya “undiluted” makes for an absorbing hear.

Particulars

• Report label: Ninja Tune
• Launch date: September 13, 2024