Painless

Nilüfer Yanya, a mercurial London artist, has released her highly anticipated second album Painless. This album serves as the follow-up to Nilüfer Yanya’s renowned 2019 debut album Miss Universe, which firmly established her as a unique artist with a distinct voice that demands attention.

Being the daughter of two visual artists, with her Irish-Barbadian mother being a textile designer and her Turkish-born father having work exhibited at the British Museum, creativity was always destined to play a significant role in Nilüfer Yanya’s life. Now embarking on the next stage of her creative journey, Yanya dives headfirst into emotional vulnerability on her sophomore record Painless.

The album was recorded in various locations, including a basement studio in Stoke Newington and Riverfish Music in Penzance, collaborating with the likes of Miss Universe producer Wilma Archer, Deek Recordings founder Bullion, Big Thief producer Andrew Sarlo, and musician Jazzi Bobbi.

While Miss Universe explored a range of musical styles from smooth jazz to pop, Painless takes a more focused sonic approach. Yanya has distilled her broad musical palette into a few robust ideas centered around melancholic harmonies and looped industrial beats that mirror the introspective nature of the lyrics. In doing so, she has smoothed out the quirks of her previous releases while retaining what makes her essential as an artist.

Painless is an album that challenges listeners to confront the discomfort that often accompanies life's most significant challenges, whether it be navigating relationship breakdowns, coping with loneliness, or searching for one's inner self. Yanya describes the album as being about emotion, noting that it is more open in this regard compared to Miss Universe. She expresses, "It's a record about emotion. I think it's more open about that in a way that Miss Universe wasn't because there's so many cloaks and sleeves with the concept I built around it." Yanya concludes by stating, "I'm not as scared to admit my feelings," encapsulating the ethos of her latest album.