In the autumn of 2022, Nilüfer Yanya found herself at a crossroads. The British singer-songwriter—whose first two albums of intricate, emotionally charged indie pop had marked her as a fast-rising star with an unusual cross-genre appeal—was finally able to step off the endless hamster wheel of songwriting, recording, promoting, and performing. For the first time in her career, she had the opportunity to press pause and consider her next steps with real clarity of mind.
It was a little daunting. “I think I’ve become more observant of how I work,” Yanya says. “I didn’t want to rush back into writing another album because it’s important to have a breather in between. But I didn’t really have a broader understanding of the process before. Now, by the third album, I kind of get it. I understand my habits a bit more.” Given the challenges facing touring musicians post-pandemic, determining when things felt stable enough for Yanya to take that step back was a trick. “It took a while to get to that point,” she continues. “No creative job is ever super secure. So you really have to feel it from within, without getting too deep. You have to be able to say, ‘No, I’ve got this. This is fine.’ You’re allowed to do that.”
You can hear the rich rewards of that downtime on Yanya’s breathtaking new album, My Method Actor, released today on her new label Ninja Tune. Across 11 tracks, she doubles down on her signatures: guitar playing that veers from a grungy, reverb-laden fuzz to intricate acoustic noodling; playful percussion that can sound as much like classic rock drumming as it can delicate, syncopated trip-hop; her quietly devastating way with lyrics. (Plus, of course, there’s Yanya’s smoky, androgynous voice, which possesses a searing intimacy that makes you feel like you’re listening in on a secret.) This masterful blending of genres gives the album a quality that sounds slightly out of time, but also, somehow, firmly of the moment.