Nilufer Yanya

One Liner:  Good indie rock and OK alt R&B

Wikipedia Genre:  Indie rock
Home: London

Poster Position: 20

Weekend One Only.

Thoughts: Was feeling pretty underwhelmed by this, and then heard a Pixies cover on her fifth most popular song, and a layer of cynicism peeled off of my ear holes and I'm a little more interested.  Her voice is kind of interesting, and the music style slides all over the place - always in the indie rock hole, but then adding in bits of jazzy sax here or a trip hop background beat there.

She made her name initially through soundcloud releases, and after being discovered there, was apparently offered the chance to join a girl band backed by one of the dudes from One Direction.  She turned that down and kept doing her own thing.  She's toured to support some large things, like The xx, Interpol, and Mitski.  She recently put out her first real album, after a handful of EPs.

After some research, it looks like you say the name as is looks - almost like Jennifer, except with Nil when Jenn should be.  Or at least that is how Colbert pronounced it.  She is Turkish, Irish, and Bajan (which I think is the same as Barbadian).  Growing up, she says she always heard her dad's Turkish music, and her mom was always on classical, so that informed her senses until she discovered guitars as a tween, starting with emo stuff like Fall Out Boy and then graduating to The Strokes and Pixies.

The sound overall is kind of like a Mitski or Japanese Breakfast.  The new wave of great indie ladies making slightly rocking indie tunes.  Her top song overall is from her first EP, "Keep on Calling," that still wins the streaming battle with 5.6 million on Spotify.

A YouTube comment called her the new Sade.  I don't think I'm going anywhere near that far, but she does have a really good and interesting voice.  I really think a ball gag might be one of my worst nightmares.  I mean, its all funny when they're showing it in Pulp Fiction (err, wait, if I really think about that scene, the Gimp is probably not actually funny at all...  hmmmm) or in this video, but honestly, having that thing shoved in my mouth for an extended period, like I'm at the dentist forever, sounds truly awful.

The one album (2019's MISS UNIVERSE) has some weird interludes like a computer voice speech program reading instructions about a freaky, uh, future world of bad stuff?  And then the first track ("In Your Head") sounds very much like something from The Strokes, or at least someone who has listened a lot to the Strokes.  The top track from the album is the poorly spelled "Baby Blu," with 2.4 million streams.

That one is just alright - there are definitely better tracks on the new album.  "In Your Head," or "Angels," or the Cure-ish "Heat Rises," or the gentle cruise of "Safety Net."  it just has an interesting overall sound - hard to quantify - and while I don't like all of it, enough of it flashes my imagination that I've listened to the album a few more times than I really needed to for this post.  Good sign.

Depending on the schedule, I might go check her out.