Nilüfer Yanya has been releasing spindly guitar songs with sharp pop structures for a few years now. The London songwriter’s most recent crop of singles, this winter’s “Thanks 4 Nothing” and last fall’s “Baby Luv,” have represented some of her strongest material yet, and today Yanya has shared another new song, “Heavyweight Champion Of The Year.”

This one gets its force almost entirely from Yanya’s delivery, which crackles and breaks with each stolid declaration, told through short phrases that punctuate her exhaustion: “I’m tired/ From all these dreams/ Lack of sleep,” she sings. “I’m still wired/ To want these things/ Don’t bring him, don’t bring.” Her words are placed over barely-there strumming which comes to life more as the song nods along, a mess of static that still sounds like the absence of feeling.

“‘Heavyweight Champion’ for me is about reaching my own (metaphorical) bar, reaching my own limits within myself… kind of forbidding to take it further,” Yanya said in a statement. “Feels like quite a physical song, quite physically tired — and mentally, but knowing the desire is still there to continue. I imagine it sometimes in my head as drawing a line around me and the outside world — a form of self protection and preservation.”

The song comes attached to a video directed by Molly Daniel. Watch and listen below.

TOUR DATES:
11/14 London, England @ Royal Albert Hall *
11/15 London, England @ Royal Albert Hall *
11/16 Manchester, England @ O2 Apollo *
11/18 Dublin, Ireland @ Olympia Theatre *
11/19 Dublin, Ireland @ Olympia Theatre *
11/23 Hamburg, Germany @ Mehr! Theater *
11/24 Copenhagen, Denmark @ TAP1 *
11/25 Berlin, germany @ Tempodrom *
11/27 Utrecht, Netherlands @ Tivoli Vredenburg *
11/28 Brussels, Belgium @ Forest National *
11/29 Paris, France @ La Salle Pleyel *
02/06 Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club ^
02/07 Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer ^
02/08 Boston, MA @ Royale ^
02/09 New York City, NY @ Beacon Theatre ^
02/11 Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall ^
02/13 Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre ^
02/14 Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall ^
02/16 Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue ^
02/18 Englewood, CO @ Gothic Theatre ^
02/19 Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall ^
02/22 Vancouver, BC @ The Imperial ^
02/26 San Francisco, CA @ The Filmore ^
02/28 San Diego, CA @ The Observatory North Park ^
03/01 Los Angeles, CA @ The Theatre at Ace Hotel ^
04/29 Brussels, Belgium @ Les Nuits Botanique Festival
* w/ Interpol
^ w/ Sharon Van Etten

“Heavyweight Champion Of The Year” is out now via ATO Records.