The great news is that Nil眉fer Yanya's third album is about to drop. But that means a little homework on your part: Carving out the time to listen. Not just half-listen.
Her 11-track 鈥淢y Method Actor鈥� is not the kind of music you blast from cars or bars or even put on while cooking. Yanya鈥檚 brand of spare, jewelbox-like songs demand your attention, each note and instrument used so deliberately.
The London-based singer-songwriter is like no one else out there, offering songs that appear at first like pleasing soft sketches until they reveal their depth and power, like tissue paper made of palladium.
鈥淢y Method Actor鈥� sees Yanya reunite with Will Archer, who co-produces and adds lyrics as well as guitar, drums, piano, backing vocals and synthesizer. In the publishing splits, he sometimes earns the majority of the percentage, making this in many ways as much his album as hers.
The standout tracks 鈥� 鈥淐all It Love,鈥� 鈥淢ade Out of Memory鈥� and 鈥淛ust a Western鈥� 鈥� are just three that show off Yanya's allegorical lyrics on a bed of shifting, bright then shadowy riptides of rhythms and melodies that can include gorgeous smears of pedal steel guitar or cello. Her vision is sharper and even less cluttered than before.
There is always the air of unpredictability, with Yanya whipping out her falsetto or a wall of fuzzy guitars coming from nowhere. On 鈥淢utations,鈥� strings briefly pop up and it鈥檚 as pleasing as a glass of water in the desert.
Her lyrics explore the push-pull of love and sometimes the space between lovers, the pulling away. 鈥淐an you tell I鈥檓 torn now, baby?/Tell me it鈥檚 alright/When I鈥檓 falling out of view,鈥� she sings on 鈥淟ike I Say (I runaway).鈥� More ominously, on the title track, she reveals coiled emotions: 鈥淪pit my teeth out as you're bleeding/I gave you everything you needed.鈥�
This is music that is part of the world and yet not of it. So a suggestion: Grab a pair of noise-canceling headphones, hit 鈥減lay鈥� and really focus on a remarkable collection of songs.
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Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press
