Japanese Breakfast Is Proudly ‘Melancholy’ On New LP

Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner will follow up her acclaimed 2021 album Jubilee and memoir Crying in H Mart with her fourth full-length, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), which will arrive March 21 on Dead Oceans. The string-heavy single “Orlando in Love” is out now, accompanied by a Zauner-directed lyric video.

The 10-track For Melancholy Brunettes was produced by Blake Mills (Fiona Apple, Bob Dylan) and features legendary actor/musician Jeff Bridges on the song “Men in Bars.” A number of the tracks have been played live since the fall of 2023, and Zauner debuted several of them last summer during shows in China and South Korea.

The artist says the new album was influenced by her sudden mainstream breakthrough in the past four years, admitting, “I felt seduced by getting what I always wanted. I was flying too close to the sun, and I realized if I kept going I was going to die.”

“Sadness is the dominant emotional key of this record,” reads a statement accompanying the album announcement, “but it is sadness of a rarified form: the pensive, prescient sadness of melancholy, in which the recognition of life’s essentially tragic character occurs with sensitivity to its fleeting beauty.” Zauner says she was also influenced by the work of painters Caspar David Friedrich and Edgar Degas and the melancholic world-building of the novel Wuthering Heights.

Beyond previously announced appearances at the Coachella festival in April, Japanese Breakfast will tour throughout the year in North America, with additional dates to be announced. Ginger Root will support.

Here is the track list for For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women):

Here Is Someone

Orlando in Love

Honey Water

Mega Circuit

Little Girl

Leda

Picture Window

Men in Bars (featuring Jeff Bridges)

Winter in LA

Magic Mountain

Here are Japanese Breakfast’s tour dates:

Apr. 12, 19 – Indio, CA @ Coachella Music and Arts Festival

Apr. 23 – Austin, TX @ Moody Theater (ACL Live)

Apr. 26 – Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle

Apr. 27 – Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore

Apr. 28 – Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium

May 3 – Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore

May 5 – Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall

May 7 – Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall at Fenway

May 9 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount

May 16 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Met

Jul. 4-6 – Ewijk, NL @ Down The Rabbit Hole

Aug. 20 – San Diego, CA @ Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre

Aug. 28 – San Francisco, CA @ The Masonic

Aug. 30 – Bend, OR @ Hayden Homes Amphitheater

Sept. 1 – Vancouver, BC @ Orpheum Theater

Sept. 9 – Minneapolis, MN @ The Armory

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