Listen to Tears HERE

Watch the video for “In Your Head” HERE

Nilüfer Yanya, London’s 23 year-old “effortlessly smooth new soul star” (The FADER) is sharing the track ‘Tears’ today – the third new track from her debut full-length album Miss Universe. “Tears” continues to show off the dynamic cohesion of Nilüfer’s upcoming record while flaunting its poppier side. Miss Universe will be released on March 22nd via ATO Records. Beats 1 Radio’s Zane Lowe featured ‘Tears’ as a World First on his Beats 1 show this afternoon.

‘Tears’ comes accompanied by a lyric video featuring the branding of the shadowy ‘WWAYH’ (WE WORRY ABOUT YOUR HEALTH™) organization whose darkly funny automated phoneline interludes are peppered throughout Miss Universe. The mind department of WE WORRY ABOUT YOUR HEALTH™ issued this statement: “Despite previous claims of crying being natural response to stress and regarded as healthy, recent studies have unearthed evidence that proves this claim as untrue. It can also simulate similar responses in others to varying degrees, primarily targeting the vulnerable (infants, children and elderly) which makes it a socially irresponsible behaviour. The Body department would like to add it is also a waste of bodily fluids and self destructive to one’s health hereby deeming the act of crying illegal.”

Upon release in January, “In Your Head” was proclaimed one of NPR’s “20 Best Songs We Heard for January”, a Sunday Times Culture ‘Hottest Track’, one of The Guardian’s ‘50 Great Tracks For February’ and landed in The FADER’s ‘20 best rock songs right now’ playlist – setting the tone for what’s still to come with the release of Miss Universe in March. Largely recorded in the same remote Penzance studio she used to jam in with her uncle Joe – a former musician himself – Miss Universe 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 started in whirlwind fashion with Nilufer touring across North America in January and February with Sharon Van Etten, including a stop at LA’s Ace Hotel Theater next week. Next, Nilüfer will embark on her biggest U.K., Europe and Turkey headlining tour to date in April. Following that, she will head back to the US for a headlining date at NYC’s Rough Trade on July 23. Tickets for that show will be on-sale this Friday, February 22nd at 12pm EST HERE.

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™. “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?”

 See Nilüfer Yanya on tour in 2019: 

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

July 19-21 – Melt! Festival, Germany

July 23 – New York, NY @ Rough Trade

August 8-12 – Belle & Sebastian Boaty Weekender

August 15-18 – Green Man Festival, Brecon Beacons, Wales

^with Sharon Van Etten

Nilüfer Yanya – Miss Universe- out 3/22/19 via ATO Records