Here’s another summery treat, this time from London girl Nilüfer Yanya. I can’t say her earlier work appealed to me much but this definitely does.
Yanya is the daughter of two visual artists, a mother of Irish and Barbadian heritage and a Turkish father.
She grew up in Chelsea, listening to Turkish music and classical music at home but gravitated to guitar rock and learned how to play the instrument at the age of 12.
Launching her career with demos uploaded to SoundCloud back in 2014, Yanya turned down an offer to join a girl group produced by Louis Tomlinson of One Direction to focus on her own music.
She later spoke out against “manufactured” groups, saying: “It’s a very selfish thing to do: ‘Let’s go and pinch some young people, tell them we’re going to make a really successful group but we’re obviously going to make a lot more money than them’.”
She’s had some big support slots, opening for Adele in Hyde Park in 2022, and for Roxy Music’s 50th anniversary tour, as well as The XX.