Wordlessly, London-based Nilüfer Yanya and her four-man band shuffle onto the Brooklyn Steel stage Tuesday night, launching right into the title single of her third album, My Method Actor.
No second wasted, the indie-rock singer doesn’t come up for air until the end of the third song, “Chase Me,” acknowledging the audience for the first time with four words: “Wow, so many people,” she smiles.
The concession feels tongue-in-cheek, as Nilüfer picks up speed with “Like I Say (I runway)” and any sense there are witnesses present fades away. Though every inch of Brooklyn Steel is filled to capacity and the praise is thunderous, Nilüfer spends each verse singing nearly to herself, eyes lidded, looking but not really, it feels, registering anything or anyone in particular, as she gazes out into the crowd.
As she sings about running on borrowed time, you’re quick to understand that her sense of urgency is innate and learned. The settled mutual understanding permeates listeners, who are but happy to sway and hold any and all unadulterated applause for each track’s end.
It’s hard to say what she’s seeing, if not the hundreds of people in attendance, but you spend the hour-long set feeling as if you’re an intruder who stumbled across a girl singing alone in the woods, just happy to partake in the intimate scene. Make no mistake about the intended audience, however, as it becomes clear that each detail has been meticulously accounted for, including the aural tapestry of live sax for an upbeat jazz take.
At the show’s mid-way point, the momentum of Nilüfer’s well-orchestrated production swings in tandem with her solo acoustic rendition of “Heavyweight Champion of the Year,” the finale on her 2019 debut, “Miss Universe,” which earned the singer-songwriter Pitchfork’s Best New Music (a feat she’s achieved three times over). It’s an apt choice, with her angry staccato guitar strums only elevating her earnest frustrations, pained voice malleable and ever-flowing.
It’s also the show’s pinnacle, beholding entranced listeners to her writhing torments over the loss of self-jurisdiction and damning physical fatigue from “a lack of sleep” over nights spent tossing and turning. At no point is the plot lost as Nilüfer tears through “Binding,” feeling more resolute in her convictions, and the crowd is likewise, renewed with energy, as she croons: “I don’t want what’s left, got to give me something strong, got to make sure it’s your best.”
Waves of interludes weave the audience purposefully from one sequence to the next of Nilüfer’s purgatory tale. Even a rare cheer or whoop of appreciation feels out of place and almost sanctimonious, detracting from the world Nilüfer has built within and around herself. There’s just one brief moment where her absolute reign slips — a momentary technical difficulty that lasts but five seconds — and she chuckles, unsure. You’re instantly attuned that this is someone who regularly seizes utmost control of the moment.
Nilüfer’s pain quickly turns into exuberance — a pity party is still, after all, a party — and there’s a resounding resurgence in the final act as she launches into “the dealer” and ‘stabilise,” off the 2022 “PAINLESS.” There’s even a reclamation of narrative as she sheds her victimhood, in a rendition of PJ Harvey’s “Rid of Me.”
“I’ll tie your legs, keep you against my chest, oh, you’re not rid of me,” she sings in defiance against her former lovers and whoever else has wronged her, waking many in the pit from their deferential slumber. The Greek god of sleep, the gentle-dispositioned Hypnos, is said to own nearly half the lives of humans as he steers them through rest. As Nilüfer closes the show with the last exuberant dregs of “midnight sun,” it feels like she’s saying, to followers emerging from their trance, to look into the light of a new day, inherently triumphant in all its rich possibilities.
