CD of The Week

Nilüfer Yanya - My Method Actor (Ninja Tune)

The cover of Nilüfer Yanya's third album finds her catching a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror from behind, her reflection's gaze matching ours. It's a tell on a few levels. On a thematic one, My Method Actor is concerned with the blurred lines between the selves we present to the world and who we are at home when no one else is looking. On a sonic one, it implores the listener to look (and listen) closer, all the better to notice and admire the subtle tricks and flourishes tucked into the nooks and crannies of the songs and production. The result, fittingly, is an alternately shimmering and sobering reflection of the eternal, internal struggle to determine not just which hairs are out of place, but which ultimately matter when we leave the bathroom.

Yanya gets the thesis out of the way with opener "Keep On Dancing", asking "What you looking for?" and inviting anyone who doesn't know yet to raise a glass. That invitation gives way to increasingly confrontational lyrics as kinetic production, complete with a shuffling drum track and warm, radiant guitar reverb that could come from Heaven or Las Vegas. From there, she locks into an immediate groove with twin highlights/advance singles "Like I Say (I Runaway)" and the sort of title track. Their respective acknowledgements of control issues (particularly in terms of others' perceptions) and how they can both sink and save us are intensified by the taut, textured productions that find her swimming ever deeper into A Moon Shaped Pool full of jazz-kissed guitars and drum that skitter like facehuggers that inevitably implant themselves in your head.

The miracle of the production this time, handled exclusively by Yanya and longtime collaborator Wilma Archer (Jessie Ware, Sudan Archives), is how they simultaneously strip away anything superfluous while still adding new superlative touches. The aforementioned "Method Actor" smooths out its fuzzy guitar frenzy with steel pedal guitar slides that seep into the overall tapestry of the rest of the album, lending softness to the hard truths and rhythms. The subsequent "Binding" nods to Tracy Chapman in both guitar and narrative. Spoiler alert: fast cars don't always get you where you want to go. Later, "Ready For Sun (Touch)" laments the lack of light left in a relationship over electronic percolation that echoes Austra combined with strings that swirl with Yanya's warm, syrupy vocals like honey in hot tea.

There are too many more highlights to name here, but like its predecessors, My Method Actor is a pulsing, probing collection of music that reaches outward by turning inward. Like Y-Not fave Annie Clark, who also knows a thing or two about the dangers of dualities and how we depict them, Nilüfer Yanya is exploring guitar-based pop in ways that manage to excite and examine with equal intensity. There are no methods to the madness of life that are foolproof but hearing Yanya's evolve on each new release continues to be a thrilling and inspiring experience.

Nilüfer Yanya returns to Philadelphia at Underground Arts on Saturday, September 28th. Enter here to win tickets by voting for this week’s Top 11 at 11.
Review by Rob Huff