Review: Nilüfer Yanya – My Method Actor

Nilüfer Yanya
My Method Actor
Ninja Tune
Street: 09.13
Nilüfer Yanya = Sade + Astrud Gilberto + A sprinkle of Smashing Pumpkins

With her new album My Method Actor, Nilüfer Yanya takes pop music to a place that is distinctly her own. Yanya’s vocals fall somewhere between the sensual, smoky delivery of Sade and the cool, Bossa Nova breeze of Astrud Gilberto. The Nilüfer Yanya sound is like eating mint ice cream out of a waffle cone, sitting on a white sand beach, in summer.

With her deep, dark confessional lyrics, Yanya reconstructs a space for the alone. A safe space to express modern feelings and discontents when the band-aides are ripped off and all the scars are exposed and addressed, that’s the place where Yanya starts from.

“Drawn and erased, done asking the dust,” Yanya sings on the track “Made Of Memory.” “There’s nothing around / So what you waiting for? / I’ll dig my own grave / I don’t give a fuck.” This fearlessness is what Yanya has elevated on this record. She sings with a new sense of freedom. “You know I’m not ashamed to jump in / To find a darker shade of nothing / So sharpen up your blade / Take what you like / The rest goes up in flames.” Yanya isn’t afraid to be honest, biting and a little bit danceable in all the carnage.

On the track, “Like I Say (I Run Away)” Yanya gives us a Smashing Pumpkins vibe and ‘90s-esque crushing guitar that lights the track up and turns it into a modern classic that comes alive with a her signature delivery. Yanya turns something sad and complex into something airy, familiar and fucking great. 

Yanya continues her brilliance on the track, “Like A Western”: “Cause the sun on your face never change / There’s a darkness in me.” Yanya sings in a confident whisper, “My life’s just a western / You’re born to fight / No luck all night / Can you make it till sunset?” The track plays out with a yacht rock elegance and a vibe of dealing with love and loss like a gunfight at the O.K. Corral. 

The stand out song on the record is the title track “My Method Actor”. The lyrics creep out like modern gothic poetry and a kafkaesque nightmare. “Keeping me down, old school glamour / Can’t get much faster / Messin’ around till I shake with laughter / Come place your dagger.” This would be enough to make the point, but Yanya turns up the dial. “Lost to a cult, let me bend this light beam / They replace my bloodstream / You should pull the trigger, aim it at my liver / losing a pulse and all my problems / I love to dance in my new costume.” In the end, Yanya can’t help herself, she leaves blood across the floor: “Gonna scream out, there’s no meaning / Spit my teeth out as I’m bleeding / I gave you everything you needed.”

Yikes! That track contains a lot.  Yet, if you were just paying attention to instrumentation, the song unfolds like a casual stroll down a street at sunset, in a resort town with three glasses of wine buzzing around in your head. Yanya even throws in a sludgy electric guitar to bang your head to. The track has everything. It’s a crystal. 

Nilüfer Yanya’s My Method Actor is beautiful, crushing, complicated and effervescent all at the same time. Yanya takes on all these disguises brilliantly. She’s slippery and elusive, and that’s a good thing. Just when you think you have Yanya cornered, she gives you some heavy guitar, or a soft whisper or a cello. Her arsenal is unlimited on this record. I’m pretty confident that My Method Actor will be showing up on those year-end best-of lists from those that truly pay attention. And deservedly so. My Method Actor may already be iconic. –Russ Holsten

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