On their new single "French Lessons," Mykki Blanco is in awe of a new love. The track announces their forthcoming album Stay Close to Music—which follows last year's Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep—that's out October 14. "French Lessons" features multi-instrumentalist Kelsey Lu.
This music marks a new chapter for Blanco, who admitted that at previous points in their career, "I didn't know what my own music sounded like without any kind of direct, outside reference. That's not a bad thing; that's how the majority of music is made.” This new shift comes from working with producer and multi-instrumentalist FaltyDL, whose compositions took Blanco to a previously unimagined creative place. “It just transported me,” they said. “It enabled me to dream in a way that I had never dreamed with my own songwriting. All of a sudden, I felt like I had this template where I could make that sound my own.”
Of the first single, Blanco shares, “The song is this ode in a way to Lou Reed. I'm not what I would consider a singer at all, I'm a talk singer so I look to people in history who have that same style: Tom Petty, Jonathan Richmond of the Modern Lovers, Lou Reed—these are all AMAZING ‘talk singers’ and I feel comfortable in that style vocally. The song was originally composed by FaltyDL and it encapsulated so much sonically of what I was trying to articulate with my own music.”
Mykki continued about working with their other collaborator on the track: “Kelsey Lu, I'm sure will go on to become one of the legendary artists of my generation. A classically trained virtuoso with a voice that sounds ancient like a bell ringing for the first time, like something out of a Greek odyssey. I have been a long-time super fan of Kelsey's and collaborating with her on this song has been a very special moment for myself and FaltyDL.”
"French Lessons" is accompanied by visual from Felix Kalmenson that was shot in the Eastern European country Georgia. “The video concept was a reflection on the ongoing struggles for queer liberation in Georgia which is felt more than ever against the backdrop of violent reactionary protests to the queer movement in June/July of this year and many years prior," Kalmenson said. "The video drew on the legacy of the bisexual Georgian/Armenian film director Sergei Parajanov and his contributions to the aesthetic landscape of Georgian contemporary culture. Together we constructed a timeless odyssey of two lovers seeking emancipation and acceptance in a world mired by conflict and violence."
Watch it below.
