NILÜFER YANYA – Feeling Lucky? EP Out on ATO Records to rapturous acclaim.
December 12, 2020
“Nilüfer Yanya’s melodies have a pull so strong they almost necessitate their own law of physics. These songs … are as evocative as any in her catalog” – Pitchfork
“One of the year’s best songs” – San Francisco Chronicle
Nilüfer Yanya has just released her new EP Feeling Lucky? on ATO Records. The three-song EP is the follow-up to Yanya’s critically acclaimed 2019 debut album Miss Universe. The London singer-songwriter has also shared a new video for “Same Damn Luck,” shot by her sister Molly Daniel in Greece this summer. “I hadn’t quite escaped what I thought I previously had,” Yanya says of writing “Same Damn Luck.” “A personal reminder in the form of a pop ballad that the past is never that far away and will regularly come back to haunt you.” On the video, she adds, “The task was to keep our eyes and ears open at all times while drenched in sunlight and sweating and squinting. We chose a place which is beautiful yet understated and made sure to pack all the cameras we collectively owned. Improvisation was the key here although extensive mapping was vital.”
Watch “Same Damn Luck”
Feeling Lucky?’s first single “Crash” (co-written and produced by ATO labelmate Nick Hakim) was released to immediate praise from the New York Times, Stereogum, AV Club, The Fader, MTV, Pitchfork, The San Francisco Chronicle and NPR Music, who called it “a metaphor for 2020 — a year in which we re-train our brains to process the nuances of our relationships and priorities in pandemic life, while allowing ourselves the luxury of short-circuiting every now and then… ‘Crash’ exudes mordant wit and thunderous appeal.”
Feeling Lucky? finds Yanya exploring life’s unpredictability – “One of the songs had the theme of luck in it as a concept but then I realised they all do,” she says. “That got me thinking about luck in general; good and bad. Things out of our control and things in control of us, how often we put acts and happenings down to the fortune of good luck or bad luck when things exceed our expectations or don’t go according to plan.”
Alongside “Crash” and “Same Damn Luck,” Feeling Lucky?’s third track is “Day 7.5093,” which was performed live for the first time on Yanya’s NPR Music Tiny Desk (Home) Concert in July and released on Bandcamp for 24 hours only as part of the democracy fundraiser Good Music To Avert The Collapse of American Democracy Comp alongside tracks from David Byrne, Arcade Fire, Yoko Ono, and The War On Drugs in October.
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Nilüfer Yanya’s Miss Universe was named one of the best albums of 2019 by Pitchfork, Billboard, Stereogum, Consequence of Sound, The Guardian, MTV, Noisey, The Independent, Paste, Under the Radar, Dazed, Clash, and more. NPR Music named her their #3 Best New Artist of 2019, behind only Billie Eilish and Maggie Rogers. Nilüfer performed her single “In Your Head” on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and Later…with Jools Hollandand played an incredible Tiny Desk Concert for NPR Music.