Nilüfer Yanya Shares New Track And Video IN YOUR HEAD, Announces Debut Album MISS UNIVERSE
By: Tori Hartshorn Jan. 22, 2019
Nilüfer Yanya, London's 23 year-old "effortlessly smooth new soul star" (The FADER) has today announced her hotly-anticipated debut full length album Miss Universe. The record will be released onMarch 22 via ATO Records and launches today with the unveiling of Nilüfer's new single and video "In Your Head".
The stunning video for 'In Your Head' was filmed in the Las Vegas desert by longtime creative collaborator ENERGYFORCE and mirrors the track's thrilling choruses and frantic energy. Speaking about "In Your Head", Nilüfer said, "Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me and I get trapped. There's the things I need disguised as things I think I only want, things I think I'm choosing out of choice not necessity. Sometimes this only becomes clear in retrospect, or maybe it will never become clear. Some people may call that being paranoid. I think that's what I wrote the song about , but what's interesting to me, and what I think I was trying to get at, is the illusion of freedom."
Miss Universe was largely recorded in the same remote Penzance studio she used to jam in with her uncle Joe - a former musician himself - and features co-productions with both her former school guitar teacher The Invisible's Dave Okumu and her live bandmates Jazzi Bobbi and Luke Bower, as well as producers John Congleton, Oli Barton-Wood, Will Archer and M.T. Hadley.
2019 is starting in whirlwind fashion with Nilufer touring throughout February with Sharon Van Ettenacross North America. The tour kicks off in Washington, D.C. on February 6 before hitting several major cities including NYC, LA, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco and more. Following that run, Nilüfer will embark on her biggest U.K., Europe and Turkey headline tour to date in April, beginning with a show in Nilüfer's father's ancestral home Istanbul. Tickets for all of her upcoming tour dates are available from HERE.
Following her inclusion in the BBC's influential Sound Of poll in 2018, Nilüfer was recently tipped as anArtist to Watch in 2019 by The Guardian, The Independent, NYLON, and more. The foundations are firmly laid for Nilüfer Yanya's debut album - and her confirmation as a rare and utterly original British songwriting talent.
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Though she'd been writing songs in her head since she was six, and on the guitar since she was 12, it took a long time for Nilüfer Yanya to work up the courage to show anyone her music. "I knew I wanted to sing, but the idea of actually having to do it was really horrifying," says the 23-year-old. When she was finally persuaded to do so, by a music teacher in West London where she grew up, she says "it was horrible. I loved it".
At 18, Nilüfer - who is of Turkish-Irish-Bajan heritage - uploaded a few demos to SoundCloud. Though she's preternaturally shy, her music - which uniquely blends elements of soul and jazz into intimate pop songs with electronic flourishes and a newly expressed grungy guitar sound - isn't. And it didn't take long for it to catch people's attention. She signed with independent New York label ATO, following three EPs on esteemed London indie label Blue Flowers, and earned a place on the BBC Sound of 2018 longlist. She also supported the likes of The xx, Interpol, Broken Social Scene and Mitski on tour.
Now, Nilüfer is ready to release her debut album, Miss Universe. Though she recorded much of it in the same remote Cornwall studio she used to jam in as a much younger person, it is bigger and more ambitious than anything she has done before. 'Angels', with its muted, harmonic riffs, channels ideas "of paranoid thoughts and anxiety" - a theme that runs through the album, not least in its conceptual spoken word interludes which emanate from a fictional health management company WE WORRY ABOUT YOUR HEALTH TM. "You sign up, and you pay a fee," explains Nilüfer of the automated messages, which are littered through the album and are narrated by the titular Miss Universe. "They sort out all of your dietary requirements, and then they move onto medication, and then maybe you can get a better organ or something... and then suddenly it starts to get a bit weird. You're giving them more of you and to what end?"
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See Nilüfer Yanya on tour in 2019:
February 6 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club^
February 7 - Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer^
February 8 - Boston, MA @ Royale^
February 9 - New York City, NY @ Beacon Theatre^
February 11 - Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall^
February 13 - Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre^
February 14 - Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall^
February 15 - Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall^
February 16 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Ave^
February 18 - Englewood, CO @ Gothic Theatre^
February 19 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall^
February 21 - Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom^
February 22 - Vancouver, BC @ The Imperial^
February 23 - Seattle, WA @ Neptune Theatre^
February 25 - Sonoma, CA @ Gundlach Bundschu Winery^
February 26 - San Francisco, CA @ The Filmore^
February 28 - San Diego, CA @ The Observatory North Park^
March 1 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Theatre at Ace Hotel^
March 28 - Istanbul, Turkey @ Babylon
April 3 - Glasgow, Scotland @ CCA
April 4 - Manchester, UK @ YES
April 5 - Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
April 6 - Newcastle, UK @ The Cluny
April 8 - Leicester, UK @ O2 Academy Leicester University
April 9 - London, UK @ Evolutionary Arts Hackney
April 11 - Birmingham, UK @ Hare & Hounds
April 12 - Bristol, UK @ Thekla
April 13 - Oxford, UK @ O2 Academy Oxford
April 14 - Brighton, UK @ The Haunt
April 16 - Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Bitterzoet
April 17 - Hamburg, GER @ Nochtwache
April 18 - Berlin, GER @ Kantine am Berghain
April 19 - Rotterdam, Netherlands @ Motel Mozaique
April 21 - Vienna, Austria @ Chelsea Club
April 22 - Munich, GER @ Ampere
April 24 - Zurich, Switzerland @ Exil
April 25 - Koln, GER @ Blue Shell
April 26 - Paris, FRA @ Le Point Ephemere
April 29 - Brussels, BEL @ Les Nuits Botanique Festival
April 30 - Nijmegen, Netherlands @ Merleyn
May 1 - Utrecht, Holland @ ACU
June 1 - Barcelona, Spain @ Primavera Sound
August 8-12 - Belle & Sebastian Boaty Weekender
^with Sharon Van Etten
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