For Melancholy Brunettes & Sad Women

After a decade of utilising alternative recording locations including warehouses, trailers and attics, Japanese Breakfast's fourth album, ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women)’, marks the band's first proper studio album, in the literal sense of the word.

Produced by Grammy winner Blake Mills, known for his work with artists like Bob Dylan and Fiona Apple, the album was recorded at the Sound City studio in Los Angeles - the birthplace of classics like ‘After The Gold Rush’, ‘Fleetwood Mac’ and ‘Nevermind’.

On ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women)’, frontwoman and songwriter Michelle Zauner retreats from the bright and extroverted nature that defined GRAMMY-nominated predecessor ‘Jubilee’ to instead explore the darker waves rippling within. A reaction to a transformative period in Zauner's life, where she managed to realise some of her greatest artistic ambitions and can now reflect on the emptiness that follows and the danger of flying too close to the sun.

Sadness is the dominant emotional tone of this album, but it's sadness of a very specific kind: the pensive, foreboding sadness that comes with melancholy, where the realisation of the fundamental tragic nature of life is accompanied by sensitivity to its fleeting beauty.