Mykki Blanco talks about cafe culture for this week's Talk The Line podcast

As Blanco tells host Emmeline Armitage, cafes were so important to nurturing his creative identity, from his days at high school in Raleigh, North Carolina, to his time living in New York.

Released last week, Cafe Paradiso is Mykki Blanco's first full-length work since his 2022 album, Stay Close To Music, and is described by its creator as a “three-act play” or “a festival album” inspired by experiencing life through transit, citing influences including Saint Etienne, The Silver Apples and Towa Tei. “It’s not a point A-to-B record, or a pre-game record. It’s an album about enjoying your own company," Blanco says, calling it "A record for artsy kids, cosmopolitan aesthetes to sit alone in a café and work on crafting the life of their dreams, or just make sense of it.”

Blanco tours Europe throughout October and November, with a show at London's Moth Club on 30 October.

On Talk The Line we speak to brilliant people about the beautiful detours that make a creative life interesting – those unusual fascinations and obsessions that sometimes lie far away from their day job as musicians, directors, comedians and actors. New episodes drop every Friday wherever you get your podcasts.