Album Info Hide Show Artist: Mykki Blanco Album: Stay Close To Music Released: Worldwide, 2022 Tracklist: A1 Pink Diamond Bezel A2 Steps A3 French Lessons A4 Ketamine A5 Your Love Was A Gift A6 Family Ties B1 Your Feminism Is Not My Feminism B2 Lucky B3 Interlude B4 Trust A Little Bit B5 You Will Find It B6 Carry On Info About Buying Vinyl From Our Record Store We are a small independent record store located at 211 High St, Preston in Melbourne, Australia (North of Northcote, between Thornbury & Reservoir) We buy and sell new and used vinyl records – if you have a collection you’d like to sell please click here . We ship Australia wide for a flat rate of $10 for standard shipping or $15 for express post. Free Shipping for orders $150 and over. You can also pick up your order in store, just select Local Pickup at the checkout. We also ship internationally – prices vary depending on weight and location. 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If you change your mind you have 30 days to return your record but you must cover the cost of returning it to the store. You can contact our Melbourne record shop at (03) 9939 3807 or at [email protected] Happy Listening! Description Hide Show Mykki Blancos 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 whos 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 Blancos 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 Lus cello and voice into a slow-motion torch song. ANOHNIs spectral presence adds another shade of ache, and the whole thing plays like a flicker of candlelight in a draughty room. Its not the blunt-force club rush of Blancos 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. Gordons tone carries real grit, while Bucks 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. Its the sort of song that could sit on a mixtape between dusty soul and alt-country and make perfect sense. Thats 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 theres 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 werent 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 its tempered by patience and curiosity. The production isnt afraid of silence, and Blanco isnt 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 youre hunting for Mykki Blanco vinyl. The low-end sits warm, the highs arent 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. Its the kind of record that makes you lean in. For those outside the city, its 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 theres 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. Its not a victory lap, more a deep breath and a hand extended. Take it. Product Reviews Hide Show Write a Review