New Track: Nílüfer Yanya's 'Paradise' Is Wrenching And Triumphant
Tristan Young @talltristan
Admittedly, Nilüfer Yanya is a niche name, even among the alt pop circles. Here’s hoping that changes by the end of the year as her new album Miss Universe is one of the very best offerings of 2019. It’s a fascinating concept album that documents her experiences with a system meant to monitor self care and support mental health, only for more sinister machinations to reveal themselves. The track “Paradise” is absolutely fantastic. It’s a daring and audaciously upfront journey through the devastation of addiction, withdrawal, and finding the resilience in oneself to get clean. Yanya begins in a medicated paradise. One of benign tranquility, but she knows it doesn’t make sense, it’s not real. She was willing to pay that price but both she and her friend accept they must begin their harrowing journey towards sobriety. “I get that your a mess, but I’m out my mind”, she sings, warning of the urgency at hand. Yanya steels herself for the physical and mental trauma, but also emptiness she is going to subject herself too, “if this is what it feels like, I’m not sure I feel it, I could do without, I’ll go without a celebration”. She’s nervous as she wonders, “think it might take me a week to recover from this feeling”. As this is happening an intriguing asymmetrical melody cautiously develops. Terse and singular guitar strings envelop small clusters of silky jazz sax. There is a mixture of seduction and anxiety that perfectly captures the surreal precipice of abuse and recovery, and how you could fall either way. The climatic plunge towards recovery manifests with an epic and resounding burst of boundless sax in one of the best instrumental sequences this year. The eggshell delicacy of her lyrical delivery transforms into a cascade of compassionate and desperate outreach, “how well are you keeping?/ how well are you sleeping?/ where do the good things go?”. Rather than render the subject matter into simplified terms, an allegory or metaphor, a direct anecdote, Yanya compels us to experience the messy and insecure nature of such struggles. That a peculiar and somewhat introverted track ends with such resounding triumph speaks volumes as to value of that struggle.