JAPANESE BREAKFAST
ALBUM REVIEW
Japanese Breakfast unveils her new album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), out today via Dead Oceans
Photo Credit: Pak Bae.
Japanese Breakfast unveils her highly anticipated new album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), out today via Dead Oceans. Accompanying the release is a cinematic music video for Picture Window, directed by Michelle Zauner herself.
Produced by Grammy Award winner Blake Mills—renowned for his nuanced approach and collaborations with legends like Bob Dylan and Fiona Apple—the album was recorded at the iconic Sound City in Los Angeles. With this release, Zauner steps away from the bright exuberance of Jubilee, instead delving into deeper, more introspective themes. Exploring the richness of melancholy, long regarded as the wellspring of poetic inspiration, the record presents a mature, intricate, and contemplative work that evokes the haunting beauty of a gothic novel.
“As I’ve been discussing this album, I’m often asked to differentiate between melancholy and sadness,” Zauner shares. “To me, melancholy is a form of anticipatory grief—an awareness of time passing, of mortality, of life’s impermanence. It also defines the artistic perspective, always observing through that lens. Virginia Woolf once wrote, ‘Nothing thicker than a knife's blade separates happiness from melancholy.’ This album captures the moments when that blade slips—when desire leads to excess, when temptation wins, when we are both drawn in and undone.”
To mark the album’s release, Japanese Breakfast will perform a sold-out recital tomorrow, March 22, at El Museo del Barrio in New York. The band will then embark on The Melancholy Tour, their first in three years, beginning with a set at Coachella before headlining shows across North America and Europe. A full list of tour dates is available at japanesebreakfast.rocks, with tickets on sale now.
Japanese Breakfast's new music video has been created for Picture Window and directed by Michelle Zauner.
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