Last Updated on 21/10/2023
The UK’s indie rock scene needs Nilüfer Yanya.
While indie booms on the other side of the Atlantic with the success of artists such as Phoebe Bridgers, Snail Mail and Japanese Breakfast, the indie rock scene in the British Isles is slightly dormant.
The gaze of ‘alternative’ music fans has been diverted by the loud flares that the attention-hogging post-punk scene is setting off. With Idles roaring in one ear, Fontaines D.C. casually resuscitating goth rock in the corner, and Black Midi having infernal saxophone battles dressed as chefs (or whatever it is they’re doing now), it’s challenging not to be interested.
‘Genreless’ alternative feels like it dominates the remainder of the space. The music of artists like beebadoobee, Piri & Tommy and Easy Life strikes a blend of pop, indie, electronic and hip-hop influences that’s perfect for today’s new music fans. Genre boundaries previously defined by geography or class have been blurred into oblivion online; the result is music that’s accessible to almost anyone growing up in the internet era.
(That isn’t to say I entirely buy the ‘genreless’ tag that gets dished out though. It’s more of a marketing ploy by execs at Spotify than a reality, but it appeals because it represents a rejection of the tribalism that has defined the music cultures of previous generations, and an acceptance of plurality. These are sentiments that chime with the progressive views of many young people today. In reality, while ‘genreless’ music contains a range of influences, it usually still sports a particular blend of them that will render it distinctively ‘genred’ in the future – it has just developed a little differently.)
There are, of course, plenty of UK indie acts experiencing popular and artistic success who don’t fall into either category. Wolf Alice put out the best record of their career last year, but they, like Sam Fender with his heartland-rock influenced indie, are producing music outside of today’s artistic narrative. It’s ‘beyond the pale of history’, as famed art critic Arthur Danto might describe it. They’re drawing from the past, moving against the current, and finding popularity with an audience that’s drawn to their nostalgia for a different time – the Springsteen in your parents’ record collection in the case of Fender, and the alternative rock of the 90s for Wolf Alice.
Nilüfer Yanya is the future though. She’s making differentiated indie rock for now, and PAINLESS is her definitive artistic statement so far.
Her journey so far
I first heard Nilüfer Yanya’s breakout track ‘Keep On Calling’ not long after its release in 2016. It basked shyly in jazz-inflected smoke between Mac Demarco, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Rex Orange County and Ariel Pink.
By the time I saw her live, a year and a half later, she’d released two more EPs. The fragile power she displayed in her performance, which saw her launch her neo-soul-style vocals from a wobbling whisper to a belt, mirrored the new dynamism of her music and differentiated her from the pack. ‘Baby Luv’, the standout track from this period, is a blissfully cathartic listen to this day; it rises from the tranquillity of her former sound with a single tear running from its eye. For the most part, it gently undulates, accumulating tension in a manner reminiscent of The Stone Roses, but the intensity of its peaks and troughs reveals a Pixie-esque penchant for drama.
Her debut album Miss Universe followed. An ambitious concept record about a subscription health programme, it made for a brilliant display of her talent with its variety of song-styles. But her second LP, 2022’s PAINLESS, distils the best aspects of her sound into a more focussed listen and further realises her immense talent.
PAINLESS
PAINLESS is a powerful – and stylish – document of self-expression.
Yanya has streamlined her art in a way that only the most accomplished creators can, and what’s more, the aesthetics feel fresh; she has made music that is coherent with current fashion but remains differentiated from it. It feels primed for this moment.
The fuzzed-out guitar that appears on the lead single from her debut LP, ‘In Your Head’, remains. It brings grit to her earlier ‘indie pop’ sound, like during the euphoric close of ‘Midnight Sun’, and feels right on trend with the return of noise to mainstream alternative music – the breakdown on Billie Eilish’s ‘Happier Than Ever’ is probably the most famous example of this.
Another key feature of her sound, evident from the first moment of opener ‘the dealer’, is the influence of electronic music’s rhythmics. A breakbeat kicks off the record, immediately inducing a state of hypnotism to lull you through the cycles of her songwriting. It would be an oversight not to make the comparison between this record and Radiohead’s In Rainbows, which combined electronics with organic guitar licks to conjure a magic of its own. Again though, Yanya’s implementation of these techniques feel very ‘of the moment’ – in some ways it’s more in line with pink pantheress, who has had a worldwide explosion of success recording intimate and soulful vocals over crispy breaks. But, Yanya brings the rawness of the rock instrumental palette, so that in comparison the digitally precise cuts of contemporaries like Billie Eillish or pink pantheress, her music still feels bare and exposed.
And this bareness is what underlies its beauty. While other indie pop might have a lot of clever stuff going on under the hood, you can only see the cogs and gears of its musical fabric that the artist wants you to – and that’s through a highly glossed window. PAINLESS makes you feel like you’re inside the machine and you can hear all the extra clanks that the double glazing normally muffles. It’s raw and visceral and real. It’s what indie rock is meant to be about.
This rawness is reflected lyrically too. The high concept of her debut is stripped away, and she channels hope, pain and mistrust from her everyday experiences – a toxic relationship is the key thread.
Sounds angsty, eh? But it isn’t angsty like ‘Good 4 U’, in all that song’s wonderful, relatable directness. She builds nuance and ambiguity into her narratives, exploring how illogical we can be in love.
Third track ‘shameless’ speaks in contradictions. She knows she needs to leave the relationship but is without shame in her irrationality to stay:
‘I’ve wasted my life, so there’s no need for the rush, we’ve got all the time here so why hurry up.'
In ‘belong with you’, the album’s narrative climax, she has the realisation that while she needs this individual they can’t actually help her. This contrast is embodied by her hopeful chant of ‘I belong with you’ behind the defeated vocals of the chorus:
‘Can’t seem to break free, But you cannot save me, I said there won’t be a next time, But I can’t see the stop sign.’
What makes this even more potent is the lack of clarity about who she is speaking to. I think you could interpret it as being directed at her partner or herself. The latter interpretation undoubtedly adds a darker edge to the lyrics of the chorus but makes her mantra of belonging all the more powerful. However you look at it, the track bristles with the conflict of hope and desperation, weakness and empowerment, them and her.
The album ends in what feels like a moment of reincarnation though. ‘anotherlife’ is idyllic, clear but melancholic. The fuzz, confusion and contradiction that characterises the rest of the album is filtered out. With its almost downtempo sound, it feels empty, and Yanya accepts the relationship is over.
‘It’s running through my veins I let you walk away, I can’t watch, All over my face, Now I’m picking up the pace’
But you’re left wanting to experience it all again. To be filled up with her music before that cleansing ending, to be back experiencing the confusion of love, because it’s better than the emptiness you feel at the end.
It’s an arc so affecting that I listened and relistened to this album compulsively in 2022.
Yanya has masterfully built a potent and singular artwork using the materials of today’s alternative trends, with its electronic influences, jazzy, soulful tendencies and noisy edge, and then taken the gloss off to make it indie rock. Indie rock ready for the future.
“When is she going to blow up?” is the question. The UK is missing a true indie rock star, a rival to Phoebe Bridgers’ growing presence (or a return to the global, indie reach that Britpop once gave the nation) – and with this album she’s shown that she could definitely fit the bill.
