THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2026 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

Following the acclaim of her 2024 album My Method Actor, Nilüfer Yanya returns with an intimate, one-take Live-to-Vinyl session at Metropolis Studios.
The performance captures a raw snapshot of Yanya’s artistry, reworking standout moments from My Method Actor alongside fan favourites. The 12" includes “Method Actor,” “Call It Love,” “Binding,” and “The Dealer.”
My Method Actor earned praise from The Guardian, Pitchfork, The New York Times, Crack Magazine, and The Face. The Live-to-Vinyl release follows major touring, including a North American run with Alex G, UK dates supporting Lorde, and festival appearances at Glastonbury, Primavera, All Points East, Green Man, and Way Out West.

Nilüfer Yanya:
“My band & I cherry picked 4 songs from the live show that we have been touring since the release of ‘My Method Actor’ that take on a life of their own on stage. Having the opportunity to record these at Metropolis archives the live show at a moment in time and hopefully makes for an enjoyable listening experience."

One of the most exciting musicians today, Nilüfer Yanya returns with a brand new studio album ‘My Method Actor’ set to release Sept 13th via Ninja Tune. With a unique blend of soulful melodies, indie rock grit, and jazz influences, Yanya’s music continues to captivate audiences worldwide. The new body of work being a development and evolution from her previous sound. Her first album ‘Miss Universe’ and its 2022 follow-up ‘Painless’ cemented her as one to watch and a staple in the indie scene, lauded by critics on both sides of the Atlantic. Since her debut, she has performed on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Stephen Colbert, Later with Jools Holland and NPR’s legendary Tiny Desk.

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: Nilüfer Yanya first came to our attention with ‘Painless’; 2022’s stunning showcase - aided by long time collaborator Will Archer - of her singular approach to creating music. In contrast to her debut ‘Miss Universe’, ‘Painless’ wasn’t an unruly expression of each of her diverse musical influences but a turbulent, coherent statement of intent.

‘My Method Actor’ follows a different path again; the distinctive, hollow picked guitar still runs through, as does the eloquent, candid introspection, mainly around the torment and vulnerability of romantic relationships, her gorgeous voice the perfect foil. The distortion driven urgency of its predecessor is, however, only apparent in the majestic “Like I Say” and title track; the remainder relying on understatement for it’s beauty and power, never more so than on “Binding”, with it’s sparse echoes of The Smiths’ ”Suffer Little Children”. All that extra space allows the soul searching room to cut through, at times to the bone. Single minded and open hearted, she’s a prodigy in a field of one.

TRACK LISTING

1. Keep On Dancing
2. Like I Say (I Runaway)
3. Method Actor
4. Binding
5. Mutations
6. Ready For Sun (touch)
7. Call It Love
8. Faith’s Late
9. Made Out Of Memory
10. Just A Western
11. Wingspan

Painless is the follow-up to Nilüfer Yanya’s renowned 2019 debut album Miss Universe, which fully established her as a singular artist and a distinctive voice that simply has to be heard. The critically acclaimed Miss Universe - a widescreen concept record that took a tongue in cheek swipe at the most self-involved corners of the health and wellness industry - was followed last year by the three song EP Feeling Lucky?, which further explored Yanya’s fascination with ‘90s alt-rock melodies and drew on themes of resentment, her fear of flying, and the concept of luck. Pitchfork summed up Feeling Lucky? and her now peerless songwriting aptitude best: “Nilüfer Yanya’s melodies have a pull so strong they almost necessitate their own law of physics.” Yanya also re-released her early EPs on vinyl for the first time this year on the record Inside Out. The release is a fundraiser for Artists in Transit, a collaborative not for profit group she founded with her sister Molly that delivers art workshops to displaced people and communities in times of hardship.

As the daughter of two visual artists (her Irish-Barbadian mother is a textile designer and her Turkish-born father’s work is exhibited at the British Museum) creativity was always destined for Nilüfer Yanya’s future. Now she enters the next stage of her creative journey, Yanya is running head first into the depths of emotional vulnerability on her sophomore record Painless. The album was recorded between a basement studio in Stoke Newington and Riverfish Music in Penzance with Miss Universe collaborator and producer Wilma Archer, DEEK Recordings founder Bullion, Big Thief producer Andrew Sarlo, and musician Jazzi Bobbi.

Where Miss Universe stretched musical boundaries to include a litany of styles from smooth jazz melodies to radio ready pop, Painless takes a more direct sonic approach. By narrowing down her previously broad palette to a handful of robust ideas that revolve around melancholy harmonies and looped industrial beats to mimic the insular focus of the lyrics, Yanya has smoothed out the idiosyncrasies of previous releases without losing what is essential to her.

Painless is a record that forces the listener to sit with the discomfort that accompanies so many of life’s biggest challenges whether it be relationship breakdowns, coping with loneliness, or the search for our inner self. “It's a record about emotion,” Yanya explains. “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.” She adds, summing up the ethos of the new album, “I'm not as scared to admit my feelings”.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Poppy melodies, clashing percussion and Yanya's unmistakeable voice weave around each-other, sometimes hinting at the vocal rhythms of R&B, but much more akin to a stylistic mix of electronic indie and scattered art-rock.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Dealer
2. L/R
3. Shameless
4. Stabilise
5. Chase Me
6. Midnight Sun
7. Trouble
8. Try
9. Company
10. Belong With You
11. The Mystic
12. Anotherlife

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 wasreally 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 soun, 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 WWAY HEALTH TM. '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?'

TRACK LISTING

1 WWAY HEALTH ™
2 In Your Head
3 Paralysed
4 Angels
5 Experience?
6 Paradise
7 Baby Blu
8 Warning
9 Heat Rises
10 Melt
11 “Sparkle” GOD HELP ME
12 Safety Net
13 Tears
14 Monsters Under The Bed
15 The Unordained
16 Give Up Function
17 Heavyweight Champion Of The Year