Description
From a genre standpoint, UK artist Nilüfer Yanya has always been hard to pin down. She’s typically billed as an R&B singer-songwriter, but even that description fails to capture the many sounds that can make up the prototypical track from her—the smooth yet hesitant voice, the clockwork percussion, the synths that fade in and out without warning.
Across her new album, her 2nd, PAINLESS, some of Yanya’s disparate sonic touchstones summon old-school comparisons to Sade, Fleetwood Mac, and Radiohead. And frenetic opening track “the dealer” brings to mind ’90s acts like Liz Phair, Smashing Pumpkins, and PJ Harvey. Such descriptions could make the album sound like an exercise in shameless nostalgia; it’s anything but—these songs, with their unique combination of heartbreak, wit, and poignancy, sound both familiar and uniquely like Nilüfer Yanya.
