Mykki Blanco - Stay Close To Music (12") - Clear Vinyl

Mykki Blanco’s Stay Close to Music arrived on 14 October 2022 through Transgressive, and it feels like the kind of album you grow into the longer you sit with it. Blanco has always bent genre lines, but here the palette expands into something warm, tactile and surprisingly tender, with live instruments doing as much of the talking as the rhymes. It comes on like a late night conversation with a friend who’s been everywhere and tried everything, and who still finds a way to sound hopeful.

A lot of credit goes to the production, guided by FaltyDL, which leans into bass, drums, guitar and strings rather than a wall of synths. That shift suits Blanco’s voice, which moves from spoken intimacy to sing-song croon to sharp-tongued flow without breaking the spell. You can hear the difference straight away on French Lessons, a standout that folds Kelsey Lu’s cello and voice into a slow-motion torch song. ANOHNI’s spectral presence adds another shade of ache, and the whole thing plays like a flicker of candlelight in a draughty room. It’s not the blunt-force club rush of Blanco’s earlier work; it lingers, and the ache is the point.

Your Love Was a Gift is the other big heart-tugger, featuring Diana Gordon and Sam Buck. Gordon’s tone carries real grit, while Buck’s country-tinged lilt gives the chorus an unexpected glow. The arrangement leaves space for all three of them, and you can practically feel the air moving around the mics. It’s the sort of song that could sit on a mixtape between dusty soul and alt-country and make perfect sense. That’s the quiet magic of the album: it reframes Blanco not just as a fearless performance artist, but as a writer with an ear for classic songcraft.

Then there’s Steps with Saul Williams, which snaps the reverie with something tougher. Williams’ presence sharpens the edges, and the rhythm section punches through like a live band in a small club. Blanco sounds energized by that friction, throwing lines that feel both diaristic and theatrical. Across the record, those shifts in mood read as a deliberate arc rather than whiplash. One track seduces, the next confronts, the next whispers a confession you weren’t expecting.

If you followed Blanco through the earlier mini-album Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep in 2021, this feels like the natural next step. The bravado is still there, but it’s tempered by patience and curiosity. The production isn’t afraid of silence, and Blanco isn’t afraid of vulnerability. Critics picked up on that at release, with coverage noting the move toward live instrumentation and the richer emotional register. You can hear it in the small details: the grain of the strings, the roomy reverb, the way backing vocals are tucked in like a shoulder squeeze.

As a listen, Stay Close to Music rewards front to back plays. The sequencing has a flow that suits vinyl, which is good news if you’re hunting for Mykki Blanco vinyl. The low-end sits warm, the highs aren’t brittle, and those midrange voices feel human and close. If you see Stay Close to Music vinyl in your local Melbourne record store, grab it, then take it home for a late-night spin with the lights low. It’s the kind of record that makes you lean in. For those outside the city, it’s easy enough to buy Mykki Blanco records online, and there are decent options for Mykki Blanco albums on vinyl through shops that specialise in vinyl records Australia wide.

What stays with me most is the generosity running through these songs. Blanco has long been a trailblazer in queer hip-hop and performance art, but there’s a different kind of bravery in these arrangements, where collaborators are given room to breathe and the writing welcomes messiness. The title reads like a mantra, and the record lives up to it. Stay close to music, and the noise of everything else fades a little.

Put simply, this is Mykki Blanco in full colour: poetic, unpredictable, and unafraid to reach for beauty. It’s not a victory lap, more a deep breath and a hand extended. Take it.