Japanese Breakfast Announces New Album ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)’

The fourth studio album from the Philly indie act arrives in March.

Image by Pak Bae

Japanese Breakfast are readying the release of their much-anticipated fourth album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women). Arriving March 21 via Dead Oceans (pre-order/pre-save here), this is the band’s first proper studio album since forming in 2013.

The record was produced by Grammy Award winner Blake Mills (Fiona Apple, John Legend, Perfume Genius) at the famed Sound City in Los Angeles, the same studio Fleetwood Mac and Nirvana recorded in.

Following on from Japanese Breakfast’s Grammy-nominated 2021 album, Jubilee, and frontwoman and driving creative force Michelle Zauner’s bestselling memoir, Crying in H Mart, the new album is a much moodier and sadder collection of songs than the band’s previous work. It deals with Zauner’s sudden rise to fame and the impact that had on her.

“I felt seduced by getting what I always wanted,” Zauner says. “I was flying too close to the sun, and I realised if I kept going I was going to die.” 

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Japanese Breakfast also shared the first single from For Melancholyu Brunettes (& sad women), the spectral ‘Orlando in Love’. You can listen to it above.

The song is inspired by Renaissance poet Matteo Maria Boiardo’s unfinished epic, Orlando Innamorato. The romantic poem consists of 68 and a half cantos focusing on the knight Orlando's pursuit of his love interest Angelica through a fairyland.

Since the success of Jubilee, Japanese Breakfast has spent several years touring the globe, opening for the likes of Florence and the Machine, The National and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, while also performing at festivals and headlining their own tours.

Zauner moved to Seoul at the start of 2024 to learn Korean and began writing a book about her experience. She also spent the year writing music for Japanese Breakfast’s new album, For Melancholyu Brunettes (& sad women).

For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) arrives March 21 and is available to pre-save/pre-order here. Check out the album artwork and tracklisting below.

For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)

1. Here is Someone

2. Orland in Love

3. Honey Water

4. Mega Circuit

5. Little Girl

6. Leda

7. Picture Window

8. Men in Bars (Feat. Jeff Bridges)

9. Winter in LA

10. Magic Mountain

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