Nilufer Yanya - Paradise

In paradise, I'm terrified.

Album: Miss Universe [debut album]
Genre: Bedroom Pop, Indie Rock
Album Release: March 22nd 2019
Length: 3:58
Producer: Oli Barton-Wood
Vocalist: Nilufer Yanya [age 23]
Label: ATO Records

Music Video


Live on KEXP in 2019

Charts, Streams & Sales

Spotify: 2,000,000 +
YouTube Music: 240,000 +
Pitchfork's Best Albums of 2019: #37

Credits

Bass, drums, guitar, keyboards, saxophone

Details

• Nilufer Yanya is an interesting young singer who mixes a blend of indie, jazz and pop styles to create one of the more noteworthy releases of 2019. She's an emerging talent who's experimenting with sound and seeing where her music takes her. This generation has a more eclectic range of influences than the previous because the way we consume music in the modern world has changed with the invention of streaming services.
  
  In the past, bands would work within a genre, but nowadays we're exposed to so many different styles that it's making its way onto album tracklists. Hearing certain albums is like listening to someone favourites playlists on shuffle and I'm all for it as long as the record feels like a coherent whole. The album title 'Miss Universe' acknowledges this and has a broad range of influences including the indie rock of Pixies, the soulful pop of Amy Winehouse and the world music of Yanya's Turkish father.
  
  As well as technology changing music, as the years have ticked by the western world has become increasingly multi-cultural and this diversity of influence is also making itself heard. Yes, these artists are impacted by the world of music made readily available to anyone with a Spotify account but Gen Z has more direct cultural influences as well.
  
  Yanya was born in London to a Turkish father and an Irish-Caribbean mother so it makes sense that her house would have been full not only of various sounds but languages, art and cuisine, and it's this diversity of influence that's more pronounced in the younger generations than it has ever been before.
  
  So the cultural factors of children born from mixed race relationships in metropolitan areas mixes with the technological factors, such as streaming, to create something that presents as new even though really it's a reconfiguration of existing elements. It's the musical equivalent of making a rainbow from the basic colours of red, green and blue. But having the colours isn't enough, you still have to paint.
  
  
• 'Paradise' is about how paradise is something that exists in the mind instead of being a real place. The concept exists in memory and expectation in a way that the real world can never replicate because paradise means something different to different people. Yanya told indie-mag that if you have paradise in your head you can take it with you wherever you go.
  

Artwork