Japanese Breakfast: Three Albums In
Review of their latest LP Jubilee and a dive into their entire discography
Last week Japanese Breakfast dropped their first record in four years, Jubilee, a self-proclaimed album about joy. I’ve been a huge fan of the Michelle Zauner-helmed rock band since I first came across the album cover for their 2017 album Soft Sounds From Another Planet on Tidal’s new releases — thank you algorithm. I had never heard of them, but the album artwork looked cool. It had a retro-futurism vibe that reminded me of vaporwave meets 1990s’ grunge — not too mention an interesting band name. Well long story short, I listened the heck out of the album. I loved it. My stand out tracks were “Jimmy Fallon Big!”, “The Body Is a Blade”, and “Diving Woman”. All gems.
The lyric that is the most nostalgic to me now is “all our celebrities keep dying/but the cruel men continue to win” from “Till Death” which takes me back to the halcyon days when we thought the world was going to end, or that things were going bad because there was a string of celebrity deaths. This was 2016, or so, and I don’t know if that is exactly what Zauner is referring to, but that was a time. And yes those cruel men continue to win.
I went to see Japanese Breakfast perform with the equally-incredible Jay Som at the Biltmore Cabaret, Vancouver about 2018, and Zauner called Vancouver, “the ‘couv” or something like that, which was funny. Also, Jay Som has a new record with Palehound (together known as “Bachelor”) Doomin’ Sun and it rocks, check it out — “Stay in the Car” is a rock anthem and a half.
But back to the show, Japanese Breakfast played the aforementioned favourite (and album cut) “The Body Is a Blade” at the show — and that shit rocked hard. Absolutely love that track. It has a strong emotional resonance, but at the same time you cannot not bob your head while listening to it— “wave goodbye to all your feelings!” — that keyboard, synth lick during the chorus like let’s go!
It has been awhile since that Vancouver show and since Soft Sounds From Another Planet came out, in the mean time Michelle Zauner dropped her acclaimed memoir Crying in H Mart reconciling the death of her mother through nostalgic cooking and memory. Most recently it was sold to Orion Pictures to be made into a feature, which is quite an accomplishment — and cool to see Orion Pictures, the production company that made goddammed The Terminator (1984) and The Silence of the Lambs, still making movies. Zauner was most recently featured on CBS This Morning where she discussed her life and performed a few songs from her latest album.
What an achievement for an indie rocker whose music is deeply personal, unique, and experimental.
But let’s get to her latest album Jubilee. Right off it lives up to the four-year wait, builds off her sound and doesn’t disappoint. The album opens with “Paprika”, which is an immediate highlight and rocks. A recurring thing on each song is the patience for the pay-off. Most songs on the album start a bit slow and then get big as each builds.
Right away I knew I was in good hands as “Paprika” — another cooking reference — starts with awesome synths, great vocals, drumming, and repetitively anthemic chorus — “how’s it feel!” — and then fills out with an Illinois-era Sufjan Stevens-esque orchestral backing. The way “Paprika” combines beautiful, touching sounds with Zauner’s sharp and head-banging-esque vocals is what makes Japanese Breakfast so great to me. In one way it makes you feel various emotions, but is always grounded in a rocking blend of experimental pop that keeps me bobbing at my desk. “Paprika” is especially resonant during its moments of singing repetition.
How’s it feel to be at the center of magic
To linger in tones and words?
I opened the floodgates and found no water, no current, no river, no rush
How’s it feel to stand at the height of your powers
To captivate every heart?
Projеcting your visions to strangers who feel it, who listen, who linger on еvery word
“Projecting your visions to strangers” is one of the most cogent lines about making art and the weirdness of living. Such an incredible tune.
With “Paprika”, Japanese Breakfast continues their Drake-like run (lol) of killing album intros —and adds to their great, already-existing openers: “Diving Woman” (from Soft Sounds From Another Planet) and “In Heaven” (from Psychopomp). An incredibly effective line from the latter track goes:
“The dog’s confused/she just paces around all day/she’s sniffing at your empty room” —
This feels like a strong image of mundane living, an overbearing parent, and the daughter/mother relationship, all from Zauner’s vivid point of view.
It’s been almost five years since Japanese Breakfast’s last album, and it feels like a wait akin to when I was a kid — young twenty-something — clamoring for the latest from Tame Impala or Beach House. You know when a new highly-anticipated album drops and you know you’re gonna listen to it on absolute repeat, knowing it will be always associated with that period in your life? I felt like that in anticipation for Jubilee and once I pressed play on Tidal Streaming (free promo), it was clear: Japanese Breakfast had done it again.
The next set of song summaries are gonna be out of order, but representative of how I came across each one, or how each one stood out — you know, sometimes when you discover an album songs resonate non-linear.
“Posing in Bondage” sounds like a mid-2015 electro- something, but the vocals are a step above and it comes through like a really good movie score. The long “wailing” guitar that plays throughout is great. Very cool that Zauner will score her Crying in H Mart film as I wanna hear her scores, and would love to get her score, or music, on a future film.
“Posing for Cars” starts like a ballad, a personal ballad and then rips into a jam solo session with a steady bassline and lead guitar letting absolutely go! An emphatic way to end
“Tactics” is another good pop song. Almost melodramatic strings from an old Eastman Color Picture, beautiful rock tune.
As of writing this “Slide Tackle” is my favourite on the album — with the opening “Paprika” in close second –, the saxophone on there, the Niles Rodgers-esque guitar work, you cannot not rock when listening to it — I know second time I’ve used this description, but talking music is hard. Even the guitar during the chorus has a “calling” like calling to someone, grasping to whatever is there and such — and then more sax, let’s go.
No, yes, the best song is “Paprika” — what a track. The everything. The line that resonates the most: “all alone I feel like dying,” “when I’m all alone it feels like dying” and all the different variations I made up in my head when I listen to it — the actual line is “but all alone it feels like dying/all alone I feel so much.”
It is a deceptively simple line on depression and living with yourself, but the way it is constructed is very specific as there are countless variations of the line just by adding or removing a letter or two — which is what I’ve done unintentionally when I listen. The subtle demarcating of the line becomes a strong conscious choice because of the possibility of variations of meaning that puts forth a specificity in feeling, or at least that’s how I saw it. Strong writing. “It’s a rush!”
Check out her latest: Jubilee.
Disclaimer: Yes, I use Tidal instead of Spotify. Also it is very difficult to write a music piece and not write “opus” at least once, but I pulled it off.
