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NILÜFER YANYA
announces new album
PAINLESS
out March 4, 2022

ON ATO RECORDS

+ Shares video for new single
‘STABILISE’

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Photo – Molly Daniel

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Praise for MISS UNIVERSE (2019)

“your new favourite soul star” triple j (Feature Album)

“When Nilüfer sings, it’s in self-assured alto and suspended falsetto. In ‘In Your Head’, Nilüfer seamlessly switches between the two, capturing the insanity of processing emotions” ACCLAIM

“an astoundingly original piece of work” CLASH (9/10)

“A musical chameleon, Yanya’s debut album puts the extraordinary talent’s songwriting skills front and centre.” NME (8/10)

“A true original”  The Guardian (Album of the Week) 

“a brilliant collection of songs, an expansive melange of indie, jazz, pop and trip-hop that flits between a lo-fi sparseness and something The Strokes would play.”  The Independent (4*)

“The rapturous debut from the British singer-songwriter takes adventurous pop-rock crucibles to new heights with her illusory songwriting and stunning voice.”  Pitchfork (Best New Music)  

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Mercurial London artist Nilüfer Yanya has today announced her hugely anticipated second album PAINLESS for release on March 4, 2022 via ATO Records. The album’s lead single ‘stabilise’ also arrives today alongside its accompanying video by her sister and longtime creative collaborator Molly Daniel.

Over a fast-paced, nimble guitar line on new single ‘stabilise’ Yanya sings “There’s nothing out there / For you and me / I’m going nowhere”. It is a song about the mundanity of the city where dog fights, small flats, and endless high-rise buildings can induce claustrophobia. Nilüfer shares about the concept behind the single and video, “I was really thinking about your surroundings and how much they influence or change your perception of things. A lot of the city is just grey and concrete, there’s no escape.” She adds, “The video plays on the central theme in the song of no one coming to save you ever. It’s set in the depths of reality in everyday life where we are the only one’s truly capable of salvaging or losing ourselves. Nothing is out there -both a depressing and reassuring statement (depending on how you look at it). Sometimes you have to dress up as a spy or a rock star and just hope for the best.”

PAINLESS is the follow-up to Nilüfer Yanya’s renowned 2019 debut album Miss Universe, which fully established her as a singular artist and a distinctive voice that simply has to be heard. The critically acclaimed Miss Universe – a widescreen concept record that took a tongue in cheek swipe at the most self-involved corners of the health and wellness industry – was followed last year by the three song EP Feeling Lucky?, which further explored Yanya’s fascination with ‘90s alt-rock melodies and drew on themes of resentment, her fear of flying, and the concept of luck. Pitchfork summed up Feeling Lucky? and her now peerless songwriting aptitude best: “Nilüfer Yanya’s melodies have a pull so strong they almost necessitate their own law of physics.” Yanya also re-released her early EPs on vinyl for the first time this year on the record Inside Out. The release is a fundraiser for Artists in Transit, a collaborative not for profit group she founded with her sister Molly that delivers art workshops to displaced people and communities in times of hardship. 

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As the daughter of two visual artists (her Irish-Barbadian mother is a textile designer and her Turkish-born father’s work is exhibited at the British Museum) creativity was always destined for Nilüfer Yanya’s future. Now she enters the next stage of her creative journey, Yanya is running head first into the depths of emotional vulnerability on her sophomore record PAINLESS. The album was recorded between a basement studio in Stoke Newington and Riverfish Music in Penzance with Miss Universe collaborator and producer Wilma Archer, DEEK Recordings founder Bullion, Big Thief producer Andrew Sarlo, and musician Jazzi Bobbi.

Where Miss Universe stretched musical boundaries to include a litany of styles from smooth jazz melodies to radio ready pop, PAINLESS takes a more direct sonic approach. By narrowing down her previously broad palette to a handful of robust ideas that revolve around melancholy harmonies and looped industrial beats to mimic the insular focus of the lyrics, Yanya has smoothed out the idiosyncrasies of previous releases without losing what is essential to her.

PAINLESS is a record that forces the listener to sit with the discomfort that accompanies so many of life’s biggest challenges whether it be relationship breakdowns, coping with loneliness, or the search for our inner self. “It’s a record about emotion,” Yanya explains. “I think it’s more open about that in a way that Miss Universe wasn’t because there’s so many cloaks and sleeves with the concept I built around it.” She adds, summing up the ethos of the new album, “I’m not as scared to admit my feelings”.  

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PAINLESS by Nilüfer Yanya
is out March 4, 2022 on ATO Records
Pre-order: HERE

NILÜFER YANYA
PAINLESS

1. the dealer
2. L/R
3. shameless
4. stabilise
5. chase me
6. midnight sun
7. trouble 
8. try
9. company
10. belong with you
11. the mystic
12. anotherlife

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Follow NILÜFER YANYA
Website – Facebook – Twitter – Instagram

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AMNPLIFY – DB