Interview Nilüfer Yanya: Space Oddity

"It's so ingrained in our lives that we don't really think about it that much," the singer reflects on the presence of social media, speaking over the phone from a snow-covered Toronto, where she's midway through a Sharon Van Etten support tour. "It's just there. I don't know if it scares me, 'cause it's already happened, and I grew up with it; it's just so much part of our lives. Not even just social media, but modern life in general, the way everything works and fits into each other. It's new, but in a way it's not. It's just the way everything's been. If we didn’t have social media, people would still talk about [other] people, and are really nosy, and everyone still wants to know what's going on. It's just that we've found another way of doing it, and now this is the socially acceptable way. You might not ask someone a question, but you'd stalk them online.

"Like, my sister doesn’t invite me to things," she continues, threatening a chuckle, "and I'll say 'Oh, aren't you going out? Why didn't you invite me?' and she'll be like 'Oh yeah, I invited you on Facebook but you never check your Facebook'. Exactly! Why can't you invite me in real life!"

The album is called 'Miss Universe', and it's a form of said person/figure/entity that speaks down the phone during these interludes. Much like the record itself, it displays ideas that might seem crystal-clear, but that can also be deconstructed with a thousand conflicting interpretations. "I liked how the words…" she begins before pausing. "Like, Miss Universe isn't a real thing, but it's a title that people use, so it is real at the same time. The kind of space it creates in your head… like, what is it? No one can be Miss Universe, it's impossible. But at the same time, people can win the competition and then become that. I just like what it suggests. [Miss Universe] is just made up nonsense," she continues, "but…"

Following a series of immaculately-composed EPs that marked her out as a unique talent, 'Miss Universe' arrives as testament that this excitement can stretch over nearly an hour. It's musically rich, lyrically complex, and always balancing that push and pull, packed with juxtapositions and trying to find a clearer path through the haze. In 'Angels', a stop-start cut that builds in intensity before dropping back to just Nilüfer and her guitar, she takes inspiration from Malorie Blackman's childhood staple of a novel series, Noughts & Crosses, and particularly a scene at the end of the first book, where the main character holds her baby so tight out of love that she ends up suffocating it. "The concept really stuck with me," she reflects. "You want to love something so much that you actually prevent it from living."

This feeling of push and pull, of love and fear colliding, remains paramount throughout the record. It exists in the murky unknown in between, and similar could be said for Nilüfer musically. Ostensibly, she makes guitar music, but her primary instrument is used in unusual ways, and comes punctuated with pops of jazz-flecked instrumentation. She's also tossed the singer-songwriter rulebook aside: 'Paralysed' matches a creeping, intricate verse with a chorus full of chunky, sunny strums of guitar and soaring vocals, while 'Heat Rises' fizzes along a line of intersecting genres. 'Tears', meanwhile, is a warped pop song that folds out into a massive chorus. Across its length, 'Miss Universe' is never straight-forward, predictable or anything less than thrilling.

"I was so attached to guitar music," she looks back, with The Strokes' debut album 'Is This It' her childhood bible, alongside records by Pixies and more (she still brings out a cover of the latter's 'Hey' to most of her live sets). "[But] it just sounds the same after a while. At first, I thought, 'My music has to sound like THIS', and now I think it could sound like anything, because it's not really about the music - it's about the song. It could be placed anywhere. I guess it's like a trend, and you're moving with the times. The sound of your music is going to evolve, but you can still keep your own style."

Sitting happily between defined genres and filling in the gaps with interesting new textures, Nilüfer Yanya's style cleverly resists being placed in any traditionally labelled box. "I like that," she agrees. "Sometimes I think, 'Oh, well that means I don't have an identity', but I don't know if that's true, or if it even matters. If you're making different styles of music, you can reach more people. Win win."

'Miss Universe' is out 22nd March via ATO.

Tags: Nilüfer Yanya, Features, Interviews