Record of the Week — Maiya Blaney – A Room With A Door That Closes

This week’s essential listen comes from NYC-based producer, songwriter, and vocalist Maiya Blaney, whose stunning new album A Room With A Door That Closes is out now via Lex Records.

Built like a sonic diary of emotional excavation, the album is a raw, genre-defying journey through trauma, derealization, self-image, and survival. Across 11 tracks, Blaney dives headfirst into the “blue”—her personal term for anxiety and depression—crafting what she calls “a love letter” to the shadows that shape her.

“It’s an elegy to feelings that feel too big to hold,” she explains. “I wanted to put a more 3D context to that light body I found myself in—and that shadow I felt.”

The result is a bold, beautifully unfiltered album that spans glitchy electro, smoky drum’n’bass textures, soul-inflected samples, and moments of quiet devastation. One minute she’s snarling with punk defiance, the next she's floating through gossamer reveries. With production help from Alex Farrar (Wednesday, MJ Lenderman), Harlan Steed (Show Me the Body), and Emerson Fossett, Blaney’s world feels intricately constructed but emotionally live-wired.

Tracks like “Fumbled,” “Honey I,” and “Recognize Me” showcase her unique ability to present vulnerability without varnish—leaning into life’s emotional messiness without demanding neat resolution.

This is an album that doesn’t look away. It’s not about closure—it’s about presence, about feeling things in real time and holding space for contradiction. Whether you're drawn in by the sonic experimentation or the emotional honesty, A Room With A Door That Closes demands your attention.