Painless

Album review

Nilüfer Yanya makes music that is as much of an eclectic melting pot as her own background. The daughter of Irish-Barbadian and Turkish parents, she grew up in London listening to Turkish music, classical, and the Strokes and the Libertines; the sound of her second album, following up 2019's acclaimed Miss Universe, is nothing like anything else being made right now. "Shameless" morphs from jangling guitars and a deep well of bass to a soulful, silky R&B track and then back. "Chase Me" is woolly with industrial static like creaky gears and moody, downbeat guitar. "Anotherlife" is café dream-pop, "Try" slowly sashays with hypnotic guitar, and "Company" is an almost goth ballad of tender sympathies. Which isn't to say there is any kind of identity crisis. The whole package very much feels like one complete idea, just traveling a boulevard of moods. "Stabilise" is a standout, its nervous, antsy rhythm, and almost math-y guitars (think early TV on the Radio) suggest the kind of oppression you can feel in a city, when the skyscrapers choke off the sidewalk's sunshine. Indeed, Yanya has said the song is about how urban life can feel "just grey and concrete, there's no escape." Her delivery is haunted on lines like "It was a small flat/ Rotten to the core/ Still going nowhere," before the drums give way to a chorus that could be heard as hopeless or self-sufficient: "'Cause I'm not waiting/ For no one to save me." Across the album, Yanya's uniquely husky voice can feel like heavyweight gauze; Sade run through a grainy filter. Her staccato delivery is disarming on "L/R," with its spooky Siouxsie guitars, elasticized bass and goth dancefloor drums, before the singer pushes up into the higher reaches of her range, a "left-right" chant panning in the speakers. "Midnight Sun" is another scene-stealer, starting off with warm, off-kilter, Radiohead-esque guitars before erupting in a storm of fuzz. "Love is raised by common thieves/ Hiding diamonds up their sleeves," Yanya sighs. When she repeats the title of "Belong With You" over and over again, it's unclear if she is trying to convince herself or the other person—or maybe the horn, low in the mix, that's just audible through a fog. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz