Summer can be bright, crystalline, effervescent, as captured by the early Beach Boys (I still dreamily associate Endless Summer with the sweltering days of June-August). Then again, there’s a shadowy, narcotized, dissociative vibe that summer often evokes, a feeling of limbo, being lost in melancholy or a pressing malaise (think Lana Del Rey’s “13 Beaches”, Mazzy Star’s “Fade into You”, the self-titled debut from Cigarettes After Sex).
With her latest EP, Dancing Shoes, Nilüfer Yanya veers from an affinity with some version of the former to a dynamic exploration of the latter. With her last two albums, Painless and My Method Actor, she crafted slightly discordant yet hook-y pop, soundscapes that brimmed with clubby beats and semi-glitchy textures. Painless oozed the exhilaration of an artist encountering her higher muses, while Actor showed her honing her discoveries, turning inspiration into, literally, method.
Dancing Shoes moves in a different direction, as Yanya adopts opaque treatments, flirting with degrees of distance and levels of embodiment/disembodiment. “Kneel”, while bolstered by straightforward beats and catchy percussion, highlights Yanya’s voice at its most tremulous, emerging from a space of confusion or barbed ambivalence. A garage-y guitar solo erupts toward the end of the track, superimposing a psychedelic tone.
“Where to Look” launches with synth fills and an echoey acoustic guitar part, a trashy drum beat soon added. If Actor occasionally landed as intentionally mapped or strategically constructed – anarchic creativity streamlined via technique – this track (and the EP as a whole) sounds more spontaneously rendered, as if it was magically banged out on a rainy morning (prior to coffee and/or checking the phone).
“Colors come undone / gone is what was golden”, Yanya moans on “Cold Heart”, diving further into a “between” or bardic space. Essentially a love song, the piece affirms a fantasy romance (“heaven knows the way you hold me”) while translating grief into a sarcastic quip (“guess you had a cold heart girl”). The track fleshes out Yanya’s pivot toward expressing archetypal loss, even as spry beats evoke a certain buoyancy. This juxtaposition of wanna-be-uptempo percussion and can’t-help-but-be-downtempo vocals – drivenness vs. disempowerment – is notably effective.
On closer “Treason”, a throbby synth line dangles like a spider web cum celestial hum, blooming into a flurry of melodic fills and accents. Yanya’s voice is breathy, sultry, ultra-otherworldly. Her lyrics are particularly oblique, pointing to a sense of disconnection – from self and others (“I cut my twin in two”, “I’m not blind I’m bleeding”).
In this way, the four-song project concludes, revealing an alternate aspect of Yanya’s MO, and underscoring producer Wilma Archer’s versatility re: invoking fertile parameters. Dancing Shoes is a memorable segue for Yanya, stretching her aesthetic, expanding her emotional range, and confirming her multifacetedness as a singer. The EP stands as a worthy complement to and departure from her previous work.
