Mykki Blanco releases new Single 'NYC DOGS'

Mykki Blanco today releases new single “NYC Dogs”, the third track taken from his forthcoming album, CAFE PARADISO, out on 4 September 2026 via Transgressive Records (presave/order HERE).

Bursting with kinetic, funk-infused energy, “NYC Dogs”, which features as a First Play with Lauren Laverne today on BBC Radio 6, serves as another perfect example of Mykki at his most playful, charismatic and fiercely self assured. Propelled by the gritty crunch of overdriven electric guitar chords, the track expertly blends instrumental unpolished garage rock grit with enthusiastic blues rhythm, with Blanco commanding listeners to “stick out [their] tongues” like the “bad dogs” they are, and repeatedly invoking the city which inspired and helped actualise this project.

Mykki Blanco - “NYC DOGS” music video

“I chose to record Café Paradiso in New York because I wanted to come home for a bit,” Blanco explains. “New York is where I ran away to when I was 16... where I first began writing music after dropping out of Parsons School of Design, where I published my first book of poetry, and where I launched my career on the underground scene 13 years ago.”

He continues: “Café Paradiso is a record for city kids. It’s heavily inspired by New York, but the New York of now, which isn’t parochial but transatlantic. Café Paradiso is also global. It’s a series of vignettes that speak to the lives lived inside the concrete jungle.”

“NYC Dogs” follows the release of the uncompromising party anthem, “Butt Sex”, and “Little Feet”, which currently sits on the BBC Radio 6 Music A-List and offered the first glimpse into the cosmopolitan, after-hours world of CAFE PARADISO.

Listen to “NYC Dogs” HERE and watch the video HERE

"NYC Dogs" single artwork (hi-res HERE)

If Blanco’s catalogue has long been defined by constant reinvention, CAFE PARADISO represents a new kind of clarity. Following 2022’s Stay Close to Music and the 2023 Postcards from Italia EP, Blanco stepped away from recording to pursue a Master in Fine Arts in Switzerland, deepening a multidisciplinary visual art practice before returning to songwriting with renewed focus.

“I love creating music but I’ve never liked the idea of being a one-trick pony”, Blanco explains. “I need to check some things off my ‘Life List.’”

Recorded in New York and shaped in collaboration with longtime creative partner and producer Drew “FaltyDL” Lustman, CAFE PARADISO moves fluidly between styles and scenes, pulling together fragments of dance music, art pop, underground club culture and genre-splicing experimentation into what Blanco describes as a “three-act play” or “a festival album”, citing references as diverse as Saint Etienne, The Silver Apples and Towa Tei.

At its core, however, CAFE PARADISO is an album about stillness, observation and the quiet intensity of being alone in public. “It’s not a point A-to-B record, or a pre-game record”, Blanco says. “It’s an album about enjoying your own company”.

CAFE PARADISO does not mark a rupture so much as a refinement in the career of Mykki Blanco. Drawing together years of experimentation across music, performance, and visual art, which has seen him collaborate with artists including Arca, Basement Jaxx, Charli XCX, Jamila Woods, Blood Orange, Kelsey Lu, Michael Stipe, Anohni and Jónsi, this album arrives at a point of transient clarity - it is a confident statement of intent, positioning Blanco not simply as a shape-shifter, but as an artist in full command of his present form.

CAFE PARADISO is released 4 September 2026 via Transgressive. Pre-order/save HERE

1. Little Feet

2. NYC Dogs

3. Butt Sex

4. Easy Does It

5. Wasted in Soho

6. FOXES

7. F**k as Friends

8. Hey Dopeman

9. Tough Guy

10. Cut Me Open

11. Spread For Me

12. God Is Alive

MYKKI BLANCO LIVE DATES 2026:

August

• 06 - Riga, LV - Vagonu Hall

October

• 09 - Bologna, IT - Dumbo
• 10 - Prague, CZ - Meet Factory
• 11 - Berlin, DE - Kantine Am Berghain
• 14 - Copenhagen, DK - Alice
• 15 - Helsinki, FI - Kuudes Linka
• 16 - Aarhus, DK - Phono Aarhus
• 17 - Hamburg, DE - Hafenklang
• 19 - Vienna, AT - Das Werk
• 20 - Innsbruck, AT - PMK
• 21 - St. Gallen, AT - PMK
• 22 - Fribourg, CH - Fri-Son
• 24 - San Sebastian, ES - Dabadaba
• 27 - Paris, FR - Badaboum
• 28 - Brussels, BE - Beursschouwburg
• 30 - Dublin, IE - Soundhouse
• 31 - London, Moth Club

November

• 03 - Glasgow - The Hug and Pint
• 04 - Leeds - Belgrave Music Hall
• 05 - Manchester - The Deaf Institute
• 06 - Newcastle - Xerox
• 07 - Bristol - Strange Brew
• 10 - Brighton - Concorde 2

More information and tickets here.