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Yanya, Nilüfer – My Method Actor [Amber Vinyl IMPORT] – New LP
Yanya, Nilüfer – My Method Actor [Amber Vinyl IMPORT] – New LP
Yanya, Nilüfer – My Method Actor [Amber Vinyl IMPORT] – New LP
Ninja Tune Records

Yanya, Nilüfer – My Method Actor [Amber Vinyl IMPORT] – New LP

$ 30.00 $ 0.00

Nilüfer Yanya returns with her highly anticipated follow up to 2022's critically acclaimed album PAINLESS. My Method Actor is yet another example of Yanya’s authenticity and innate creativity that effortlessly flows from pen to paper.

The new single was written in collaboration with Yanya’s creative partner, Wilma Archer (Sudan Archives, MF DOOM, Celeste), with whom she’s previously collaborated on PAINLESS and her debut album Miss Universe. Throughout their creative process, a clear emphasis was placed on forming a safe musical space where creative impulses were encouraged and all perceived musical boundaries were eroded. This same process is reflected in the albums lyrics, which emphasize unrestricted artistry and standing firm in one’s truest self as Yanya attempts to make sense of the world around her. The album will be backed by a host of videos and creative visuals conceptualized by Nilüfer herself. Following the album release Nilüfer will head out on a full scale North American tour.

 

 

Perhaps London singer-songwriter Nilyufer Yanya’s greatest strength is her unpredictability. With a tone and a soul attributable to a contemporary R&B artist, Yanya’s existential pop songs are never what they first seem. In fact, My Method Actor, her third studio album, is a record worth taking in over multiple listens as each one yields some new lyric, new meaning, or new texture to appreciate. Using method acting as a metaphor for the practice of songwriting, of dredging up difficult memories to be reenacted on stage, Yanya paints a violent picture of internal struggle with lyrics like “You should pull that trigger, aim it at my liver/ Losin’ a pulse and all my problems/ I love to dance in my new costume.” With a skittering drum beat and sudden dirges of reverb-heavy guitar, the titular single is indicative of the sound Yanya and collaborator Wilma Archer explore across the rest of the album, one which pulls from the singer’s early alt-rock influences in The Strokes and The Pixies. On “Like I Say (I Run Away)” Yanya feels like she’s living on borrowed time as she struggles with decision paralysis in her relationships, singing “The minute I’m not in control/ I’m tearing up inside/ And I can’t stop you leaving/ Is the biggest fear of mine.” This track, too, features a steady tempo and knocking percussion that drives towards a chorus of fuzzed-out guitar à la The Breeders. Meanwhile, “Ready for Sun (touch)” is a pretty, acoustic ballad sung to her own shadow, another metaphor for performing, that ends with a gorgeous swell of strings and guitar distortion. My Method Actor is pop music for those of us with an alt-rock phase and an interior world riddled with question marks.

–Stephanie Barclay

 

Nilüfer Yanya formally announces her new album My Method Actor, out September 13th on Ninja Tune. The news arrives alongside the release of her new single, the near-title track “Method Actor,” and follows her recent single “Like I Say (I runaway),” which the New York Times described as, “reveling in contrasting textures” and The FADER called, “a jolting return.” Putting herself in an unnamed character’s shoes, “Method Actor” portrays a mini-life story in under four minutes. The accompanying visualiser was shot in an old hotel in Benidorm, Spain and is a one take video capturing Nilüfer sitting down to share the song's story.

Speaking about “Method Actor” Nilüfer describes how the concept for the song came together, “I was researching method acting - and from what I read, it’s based on finding this one memory in your life, a life-altering, life-changing memory. The reason why some people find method acting traumatic and maybe not safe mentally, is because you're always going back to that moment. It can be good or bad but you're always feeding off the energy, something that's defined you - and that's what helps you become the character. It’s a bit like being a musician. When you’re performing, you’re still trying to invoke the energy and emotion of when you first wrote it, in that moment. It definitely feels like you're having to recreate or step into that headspace.”

As a whole, Nilüfer Yanya’s third album asks questions with no easy answers. It is a supple, expansive body of work that peers into the crevices of life, exploring them with comforting strings, skittering beats, soul-tinged melodies and swooning harmonies. It asks, who are we? Why do we follow the paths we follow? What is at the heart of it all?

While writing My Method Actor, Nilüfer retreated into the studio with her creative partner, Wilma Archer (Sudan Archives/MF Doom/Celeste). She had toured her second album, PAINLESS, for a year and entered a period of transition, between albums, between record companies, between homes. My Method Actor deals a lot with the idea of movement from one part of life and into another. The seeds of My Method Actor were planted in early 2023, but it wasn’t until the spring of that year that shoots began to appear. As songs started to form, Yanya and Archer squirreled themselves away from the world. “This is the most intense album, in that respect,” Yanya says. “Because it’s only been us two. We didn’t let anyone else into the bubble.” They wrote and recorded in small sessions, spread across London, Wales and Eastbourne. You can feel this cocooning of creative energy in the atmosphere of the record: it envelopes you entirely in cinematic sweeps while feeling intimate, finally inviting you into the little world they created and offering up its secrets.

Songs bloomed into being in unexpected ways helping Yanya make sense of her world and the ways it’s changing as she enters her late twenties and grapples with what it means to be an established musician. “For me, writing is definitely problem solving - in the way they say that dreaming is like problem solving. You're like, oh, that sounds good. That looks good. That makes sense. But you don't really know why. You're kind of using that part of your creative brain that doesn't have to make sense.” Her lyrics are specific and hazy at once, and sometimes surreal: she talks about the songs as though she’s trying to decipher the person she was when she wrote them. 


released September 13, 2024

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