New album “My Method Actor” and more

“I’m not interested in a direct message,” says Nilüfer Yanya, who is calling from her home in east London. Yanya punctuates her sentences with her cheerful laugh or an introspective tone. hmmm and qualifies his remarks with a continuous metacommentary. “I am inspired by the fact of writing on a subject that is a little less clear.” My Actor Method – Yanya’s third album, released this month, solidifies her belief that the strongest ideas often lie somewhere in between. Reflecting on delicate yet intriguing themes like memory and nostalgia, the album sees her develop her rich storytelling style.

While it’s easy to let Nilüfer Yanya’s latest single, “Like I Say (I Runaway),” play on repeat, getting lost in the drone of the six-string, the raspy low end of Yanya’s voice, the kick drum that keeps the steady beat of a metronome, the vulnerability of her verses pulls the listener into the moment: “As soon as I lose control, I cry inside,” she sings, a fitting admission for an artist who says she’s nervous about letting others take the reins.

The daughter of two visual artists, Yanya learned classical piano at school in London before falling in love with the electric guitar thanks to her older sister’s favourite bands: The Strokes, Bloc Party, The Cure, The Pixies. Inspired, she started playing guitar at the age of 12. She went on to train with Dave Okumu of the band Invisible and recorded her first songs in a studio built by her uncle, music producer Joe Dworniak. These demos, uploaded to SoundCloud in 2014, revealed her post-punk influences, layering her falsetto and low, low register over reverb-laden minor chords.

At 20, Yanya was shortlisted for a girl group planned by One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson, but she declined to participate so she could focus on her own music (a wise choice: the project fell through after a year). Between 2016 and 2018, she released a series of EPs on the Blue Flowers label, showcasing her haunting melodies, nimble rhythms, and—most importantly—cryptic storytelling, whether writing from the perspective of a petty thief or singing in front of a bouquet of flowers to represent a relationship fading. On her debut album, released in 2019, Miss Universe and its sequel in 2022 PAINLESSshe pushed her guitar into grunge red. It’s on the latter’s final track, the light-hearted “anotherlife,” that she alludes to the concepts—childhood, memory, nostalgia—she explores in more detail on “Method Actor”:And I don’t act my age/ Now you’re chasing my love”, she sings, supported by a Greek choir composed of her own vocal harmonies.

On My Actor Methodthe existential unknown of adulthood is at the forefront: “What are you looking for? / Shut up and raise your glass if you’re not sure,” she sings on the opening track, “Keep On Dancing.” It’s a directive to her listeners as much as to herself. There’s a recurring motif of escaping the responsibilities of aging: it presents itself as a long drive through the night on the quiet melodies of “Binding” or a literal walk on “Like I Say (I Runaway).”

In the video for “Like I Say (I Runaway)”—directed, as with all of her visuals, by Yanya’s older sister, Molly Daniel—she plays a runaway bride. In our conversation, Yanya describes the choice as inspired in part by personal anxieties, the fear of drifting apart from her friends as their lives take different paths. “I see people getting married around me, but I don’t really want to do it myself,” she says. “It’s weird to think that it’s normal now, because everyone’s grown up.”