At 18, Nilüfer – who is of Turkish-Irish-Bajan heritage – uploaded a few demos to SoundCloud. Though she’s preternaturally shy, her music – which uniquely blends elements of soul and jazz into intimate pop songs with electronic flourishes and a newly expressed grungy guitar sound – isn’t. And it didn’t take long for it to catch people’s attention. She signed with independent New York label ATO, following three EPs on esteemed london indie label Blue Flowers, and earned a place on the BBC Sound of 2018 longlist. She also supported the likes of The xx, Interpol, Broken Social Scene and Mitski on tour.
Now, Nilüfer is ready to release her debut album, Miss Universe. Though she recorded much of it in the same remote Cornwall studio she used to jam in as a much younger person, it is bigger and more ambitious than anything she has done before. ‘Angels’, with its muted, harmonic riffs, channels ideas “of paranoid thoughts and anxiety” – a theme that runs through the album, not least in its conceptual spoken word interludes which emanate from a fictional health management company WE WORRY ABOUT YOUR HEALTH™. “You sign up, and you pay a fee,” explains Nilüfer of the automated messages, which are littered through the album and are narrated by the titular Miss Universe. “They sort out all of your dietary requirements, and then they move onto medication, and then maybe you can get a better organ or something… and then suddenly it starts to get a bit weird. You’re giving them more of you and to what end?”
TOUR
6 February | 9:30 Club, Washington^
7 February | Union Transfer, Philadelphia^
8 February | Royale, Boston^
9 February | Beacon Theatre, New York City^
11 February | Danforth Music Hall, Toronto^
13 February | Majestic Theatre, Detroit^
14 February | Thalia Hall, Chicago^
15 February | Thalia Hall, Chicago^
16 February | Firsy Avenue, Minneapolis^
18 February | Gothic Theatre, Englewood^
19 February | Metro Music Hall, Salt Lake City^
21 February | Crystal Ballroom, Portland^
22 February | The Imperial, Vancouver^
23 February | Neptune Theatre, Seattle^
26 February | The Filmore, San Francisco^
28 February | The Observatory North Park, San Diego^
1 March | The Theatre, LA^
28 March | Babylon, Istanbul
3 April | CCA, Glasgow
4 April | YES, Manchester
5 April | Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
6 April | The Cluny, Newcastle
8 April | O2 Academy Leicester University, Leicester
9 April | Evolutionary Arts Hackney, London
11 April | Hare & Hounds, Birmingham
12 April | Thekla, Bristol
13 April | O2 Academy Oxford, Oxford
14 April | The Haunt, Brighton
16 April | Bitterzoet, Amsterdam
17 April | Nochtwache, Hamburg
18 April | Kantine am Berghain, Berlin
19 April | Motel Mozaique, Rotterdam
21 April | Chelsea Club, Vienna
22 April | Ampere, Munich
24 April | Exil, Zurich
25 April | Blue Shell, Koln
26 April | Le Point Ephemere, Paris
29 April | Les Nuits Botanique Festival, Brussels
30 April | Merleyn, Nijmegen
1 May | ACU, Utrecht
1 June | Primavera Sound, Barcelona, Spain
8-12 August | Belle & Sebastian Boaty Weekender
^with Sharon Van Etten
Substance is Meaningless 