On Wednesday, November 6th at 8:30pm, Big Bird airs his interview with London based singer-songwriter, Nilüfer Yanya, before her recent SF show at August Hall.
Yanya’s third album, My Method Actor, asks questions with no easy answers. It is a supple, expansive body of work that peers into the crevices of life, exploring them with comforting strings, skittering beats, soul-tinged melodies and swooning harmonies. It asks, who are we? Why do we follow the paths we follow? What is at the heart of it all?
While writing My Method Actor, Nilüfer retreated into the studio with her creative partner, Wilma Archer (Sudan Archives/MF Doom/Celeste). She had toured her second album, PAINLESS, for a year and entered a period of transition, between albums, between record companies, between homes.
My Method Actor deals a lot with the idea of movement from one part of life and into another. The seeds of My Method Actor were planted in early 2023, but it wasn’t until the spring of that year that shoots began to appear. As songs started to form, Yanya and Archer squirreled themselves away from the world.
“This is the most intense album, in that respect,” Yanya says. “Because it’s only been us two. We didn’t let anyone else into the bubble.” They wrote and recorded in small sessions, spread across London, Wales and Eastbourne. You can feel this cocooning of creative energy in the atmosphere of the record: it envelopes you entirely in cinematic sweeps while feeling intimate, finally inviting you into the little world they created and offering up its secrets.
