Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Nilüfer Yanya is no longer the tyro singer-songwriter who featured in the BBC Sound of 2018 list of newcomers. The glowing praise for the Londoner’s first two albums, 2019’s Miss Universe and 2022’s Painless, is receding into the past. She describes her new album My Method Actor as “soundtracking a transitional time in my life”. She will be 30 next year. “I can still get away with being young,” she told the Irish Times recently while discussing her place in the youth-driven music industry. “But am I young? I don’t know. Is this still for me?”Based on her new songs, the answer to the last question is an unequivocal yes. My Method Actor is a thoughtful and interestingly cryptic work by a serious-minded singer-songwriter whose idea of success doesn’t overlap with conventional metrics of sales and streams. “I don’t have the capacity or desire to do that,” she said in the same Irish Times interview about chasing hits. As shown by her hard-to-categorise sound, which has inspired a varied set of comparisons ranging from The Breeders to Sade, Yanya is determined to operate on her own terms.My Method Actor’s title bears a superficial resemblance to St Vincent’s 2009 album Actor. Like the US indie star, Yanya is a guitarist as well as singer. Her debut Miss Universe was produced by John Congleton, who has worked regularly with St Vincent. This album’s cover shows Yanya looking at us obliquely through a mirror in what might be a nightclub bathroom, like a character in a story. But the record doesn’t mimic St Vincent’s Bowie-esque interest in personas and chameleonism.Made with British producer and musician Will Archer, the songs are about people in precarious states of mind or relationships. The scenarios are opaque. Yanya’s murmured voice remains the same throughout. Her vocals are often double-tracked as though she were shadowing herself. The music is sinuous and open-ended.“What you looking for?” she asks at the start of opening track “Keep on Dancing”; tensely unresolved chords underline the mood of uncertainty. In “Like I Say (I Runaway)”, she sings about being misunderstood as a thick fuzztone guitar riff fills the surrounding acoustic space with distortion. “Binding” slips a little too easily into minor-key acoustic-guitar melancholy, but the lapse is rare. “Made Out of Memory”, a captivatingly smooth number about life’s jagged edges, is a better illustration of the sly songwriting talents on display here.★★★★☆‘My Method Actor’ is released by Ninja Tune
