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When I gave the 26-year-old English singer-songwriter Nilüfer Yanya a call in early March, she was just finishing up a soundcheck for a show in Belfast, and was exactly a week past the release of her terrific new album, PAINLESS. The LP — a follow-up to her much-lauded 2019 debut Miss Universe — has garnered acclaim so widespread and immediate that even Pitchfork, the notoriously hard-to-please music pub, couldn’t help but gift it its much-aspired-to Best New Music stamp. Though the many stressful obligations associated with an album release were starting to sink in when we talked — working out live-setting kinks; the extensive touring to come; promo (sorry) — a sense of gratitude was inextricable from the looming busyness.

“The dust is settling a bit, I guess, around the initial excitement (of an album release),” Yanya told me over Zoom. “And you’re like, ‘okay, like, I’ve got a lot of work to do, a lot of gigs to play — got a lot more songs to learn.’ It’s still exciting, though. I feel very grateful just being able to release this record, especially, like, amid everything that’s been happening in the world. I know I’m really lucky to release music.”

Read the full feature on 425.