Japanese Breakfast releases new album 'For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)', Watch the Video for "Picture Window" now

Acclaimed modern rock artist Japanese Breakfast's new album is out today! Below is the official media release and links to hear new music from the release. Make sure to check out the shimmering new video for "Picture Window" too...Robert Kinsler

JAPANESE BREAKFAST

NEW ALBUM

FOR MELANCHOLY BRUNETTES (& SAD WOMEN)

OUT TODAY VIA DEAD OCEANS

WATCH VIDEO FOR ALBUM HIGHLIGHT “PICTURE WINDOW”

2025 TOUR DATES ANNOUNCED

Photo credit: Pak Bae Japanese Breakfast releases her anticipated new album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), today via Dead Oceans along with a cinematic video directed by Michelle Zauner for album standout “Picture Window.” Produced by Grammy Award winner Blake Mills — an innovator of uncommon subtlety, known for his work with everyone from Bob Dylan to Fiona Apple and quietly regarded as many a legacy artist’s favorite guitar player — and tracked at the venerable Sound City in Los Angeles — the record sees Zauner pull back from the bright extroversion that defined its predecessor Jubilee to examine the darker waves that roil within, the moody, fecund field of melancholy, long held to be the psychic state of poets on the verge of inspiration. The result is an artistic statement of purpose: a mature, intricate, contemplative work that conjures the romantic thrill of a gothic novel.  “Over the course of promoting this new album I’ve often been asked to clarify the difference between melancholy and sadness. I think of melancholy as a kind of anticipatory grief, one that comes from an acknowledgment of the passage of time, from the recognition of mortality and finitude. In some way, too, I think it marks the artist’s condition, constantly observing through that lens,” Zauner says of the album. “‘Nothing thicker than a knife's blade separates happiness from melancholy,’ Virginia Woolfe writes. I wanted this album to capture the moments where that knife slips. When people want too much, when they cede to temptation, when they are seduced and punished.” Japanese Breakfast will be celebrating the album’s release by playing a sold out album release recital tomorrow, March 22 at El Museo del Barrio in New York. Their tour in support of For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) kicks off with a performance at the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio, CA and continues with headline shows across North America and Europe this year. The Melancholy Tour is the band’s first tour in three years, following the Jubilee Tour in 2022. All tour dates can be found below and tickets are on-sale now via japanesebreakfast.rocks. WATCH THE “PICTURE WINDOW” VIDEO

Michelle Zauner on “Picture Window”: “Ever since I was a young girl I’ve dealt with intrusive thoughts of loved ones dying horrible deaths. When someone is running late or they’ve neglected a text or even if they’re just looking over a balcony, my mind has a tendency to run to the worst case scenario, a reflex only exacerbated by my experience of many real deaths. It can be both a relief and a struggle to love someone who doesn’t share this same proclivity for anxiety. Picture Window explores that dynamic. We shot the video while I was living in Seoul last year. My idea was to follow a couple, constantly tracking left to right, as one partner charges boldly forward and the other, progressively anxious, becomes increasingly reluctant to follow. When I met Omega from Balming Tiger, I knew immediately he would be perfect for the first role, his energy and charm were so readily apparent. Gyuri Kim, with her feeling for melancholy and uncertainty, turned out to be a wonderful counterpart. I wanted this video to feel like a short film, and watching it back, it’s bittersweet to look back on my year abroad—the wonderful people I met, the neighborhoods I loved and lived in. The constant tracking from left to right is a reminder of how time continues to pass no matter how forcefully you struggle to beat it back or rush to get ahead of it. I watch out the window as the scenery passes, visualizing all my unlived lives swishing past.” TOUR DATES: Mar 22 - New York, NY @ El Museo del Barrio - SOLD OUT Apr 12 & 19 - Indio, CA @ Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival Apr 23 - Austin, TX @ ACL Live at the Moody Theater * Apr 24 - Dallas, TX @ South Side Ballroom * Apr 26 - Atlanta, GA @ The Tabernacle * Apr 27 - Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore * Apr 28 - Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium * Apr 30 - Chicago, IL @ Salt Shed * May 01 - Chicago, IL @ Salt Shed * - SOLD OUT May 02 - Chicago, IL @ Salt Shed * - SOLD OUT May 03 - Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore * May 05 - Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall * - SOLD OUT May 06 - Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall * May 07 - Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall at Fenway * May 09 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount * - SOLD OUT May 10 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount * - SOLD OUT May 11 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount * - SOLD OUT May 12 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount * May 15 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Met Philadelphia * May 16 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Met Philadelphia * - SOLD OUT Jun 03 - Sydney, AU @ Vivid LIVE at Sydney Opera House Jun 05 - Melbourne, AU @ RISING at PICA Jun 07 - Auckland, NZ @ Auckland Town Hall Jun 11 - Tokyo, JP @ Zepp Shunkjuku Jun 13 - Osaka, JP @ Club Quattro Jun 15 - Cheorwon-gun, KR @ DMZ Peace Train Music Festival Jun 21 - Milwaukee, WI @ Summerfest Jun 24 - Oslo, NO @ Rockefeller Jun 25 - Stockholm, SE @ Filadelfia # Jun 26 - Copenhagen, DK @ VEGA # Jun 28 - Pilton, UK @ Glastonbury Festival Jun 29 - Manchester, UK @ Academy 1 # Jun 30 - Glasgow, UK @ Barrowland # Jul 01 - Bristol, UK @ O2 Academy Bristol # Jul 03 - London, UK @ O2 Academy Brixton # Jul 4-6 - Ewijk, NL @ Down The Rabbit Hole 2025 Jul 05 - Utrecht, NL @ TivoliVredenburg # Jul 08 - Paris, FR @ Le Trianon # July 10 - Bilbao, ES @ Bilbao BBK Live July 27 - Portland, OR @ Project Pabst Aug 23 - Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl * Aug 27 - San Francisco, CA @ The Masonic * Aug 28 - San Francisco, CA @ The Masonic * - SOLD OUT Aug 30 - Bend, OR @ Hayden Homes Amphitheater * Sep 01 - Vancouver, BC @ The Orpheum * Sep 02 - Seattle, WA @ Woodland Park Amphitheater *  Sep 03 - Seattle, WA @ Woodland Park Amphitheater *  Sep 05 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Twilight Concert Series @ Pioneer Park * ^ Sep 06 - Denver, CO @ The Mission Ballroom * Sep 09 - St Paul, MN @ The Palace Theater * Sep 10 - Madison, WI @ The Sylvee * * w/ Ginger Root # w/ Minhwi Lee ^ w/ Tomper WATCH THE PREVIOUSLY RELEASED VIDEOS FOR “ORLANDO IN LOVE” & “MEGA CIRCUIT”

Though Zauner has experimented with science fiction on Soft Sounds from Another Planet and buoyant surrealism on Jubilee, the landscape of European Romanticism that underpins For Melancholy Brunettes and the dense tissue of classical allusion that comes with it marks new territory for a songwriter entering her artistic maturity. She credits a range of antecedents with inspiration. The forlorn café girl in Degas’ “L’absinthe”. The seascapes of Caspar David Friedrich. The passionate longing and wild, undulating moors in Wuthering Heights. Hans Castorp wrapped in his camel hair blanket, dreaming on the Berghof balcony. It is an atmosphere made palpable by the intricate, interlocking guitar arrangements that accompany much of the record, lapping like waves over the meter, often as oblique in their expression of the chord as Zauner can be in her polyvalence of feeling and insight. Sadness is the dominant emotional key of this record, 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 finds space enough inside it for glimmers of hope. They are the consolations of mortals that poets before her have called out to and that poets after will continue to rediscover: love and labor, and though they run like tonic resolutions through the record’s many episodes.

Album Art Credit: Pak Bae

TRACK LIST:  1. Here is Someone 2. Orlando 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 Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple Music

Karl Wallinger's legacy celebrated via new World Party compilation 'Best in Show'

In this column I highlight an essential new collection featuring the Karl Wallinger-fronted World Party's most beloved tracks.

Artist: World Party
Title: Best in Show (Seaview)
You might like if you enjoy: World Party, The Waterboys, John Lennon
Tell me more: Following the death of acclaimed singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Karl Wallinger just over a year ago (March 10, 2024) at the age of 66, the artist's family and record label began putting together a special deluxe compilation of his groundbreaking band World Party's hit singles and deep album cuts recognized as fan favorites. Originally issued 2007 as a limited-edition release, Best in Show has been expanded and is available on audio CD as well as via a limited-edition, double-vinyl pressing that includes updated artwork from designer Richard Evans. Best in Show is a truly marvelous overview of World Party's far-flung strengths ranging from the propulsive opener "Ship Of Fools" (a environmental-themed hit single off the band's 1987 debut album Private Revolution) and infectious 1990 single "Way Down Now" off World Party's second album Goodbye Jumbo to the soaring Beatles-flavored "Put the Message in the Box," bewitching folk rock gem "Is It Like Today?" (the latter being the band's highest-streamed track) and "She's the One," the latter recalling the spirit of John Lennon's early '70s solo piano-anchored material. Other standout selections include the mesmerizing "All Come True" with its myriad of musical layers, the psychedelic rocker "Thank You World," breezy aptly-titled "Sunshine," evocative "What Does It Mean Now" and otherworldly "When The Rainbow Comes." The collection ends with the affecting genre-defying closer "Always."

For a deeper dive into Wallinger's amazing legacy, check out the the Waterboys' 1985 masterwork This Is The Sea — that album finds Wallinger co-producing many of the tracks as well as contributing backing vocals, synth bass, percussion, piano and organ. Wallinger formed World Party in 1986 shortly after leaving the Waterboys. Information: worldparty.net

Robert Kinsler

The Minus 5 shares “Blow in My Bag” featuring Debbi Peterson and Patterson Hood; Tour Dates Announced

The Minus 5 shares "Blow in My Bag" new track features Vocals from Debbi Peterson of The Bangles and Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers

 

Oar On, Penelope! Out May 30 on Yep Roc Records

 

Watch/Share: “Blow in My Bag” Official Video

 

More Tour Dates Announced 

 

Today, indie rock collective The Minus 5, lead by legendary musician and songwriter Scott McCaughey, shares “Blow in My Bag,” the second single and video from Oar On, Penelope! out May 30 on Yep Roc Records.

 

“Directed” by McCaughey, the instant video includes sneaky appearances of the featured album players Kurt Bloch, Peter Buck, Patterson Hood, Debbi Peterson, Linda Pitmon and Spencer Tweedy, as well as cameos from the Yep Roc Records artist roster past and present: Alejandro Escovedo, John Wesley Harding, Chuck Prophet and Steve Wynn.

 

Of the song, Scott McCaughey says: "I had an idea to do a Nancy Sinatra / Lee Hazlewood duet between me and Debbi, but of course, I only mention that because I typically don’t manage to get close enough to elicit comparisons. That being said, I’m not sure what the song is about, but Patterson’s vocals at the end convince me that he knows!"

 

The album's first single, "Words & Birds," “a power-pop gem” (American Songwriter), is a raucous ode to life, punctuated by cranky guitars and McCaughey’s unmistakable vocal delivery. 

 

Throughout the 12-song collection, McCaughey’s breadth of musical knowledge and appreciation is on full display from the addictive power pop of “Words & Birds” to the gnarly garage rock of “The Garden of Arden,” the Neil Young-influenced Americana of “Bison Queen,” and the bite-sized psychedelia of “Sharktooth.” “The songs feel immediate, relatively unadorned, and somewhat more positive in an indescribable way,” says McCaughey. “The words could be termed stream-of-consciousness, which is nothing new from this sector, but there seems to be a ray of light fighting its way through the usual twisted tales.”

 

Produced by Scott McCaughey and mixed by legendary engineer Ed Stasium (The Replacements, Ramones, Talking Heads), Oar On, Penelope! is The Minus 5’s first album of all-original material in five years and features help from some of his most trusted allies: Peter Buck (R.E.M.), Patterson Hood (Drive-By Truckers), Debbi Peterson (The Bangles), Kurt Bloch (The Fastbacks), Linda Pitmon (Baseball Project, Filthy Friends), and Spencer Tweedy.

 

Over a four-decade career, indie rock cult hero Scott McCaughey has been a member of many bands, including R.E.M., Young Fresh Fellows, Baseball Project, Filthy Friends, and Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3, to name a few.  Still, The Minus 5 has remained one of the most enduring projects of his storied résumé. Suffering a near-fatal stroke in 2017, it was under the The Minus 5 name that McCaughey put out the recordings of Stroke Manor, featuring the original songs that detail his recovery through music therapy.

 

Formed in 1993 by Scott McCaughey, The Minus 5 is known for its collaborative ethos and ever-changing lineup, which has included some of the most celebrated names in music, from Jeff Tweedy and Wilco to The Decemberists, Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie, Kelly Hogan, M. Ward, Chuck Prophet, Michael McCready of Pearl Jam, Alejandro Escovedo, and many more. The band embodies the communal spirit that has been a hallmark of the band since its inception.

 

The Minus 5 Tour Dates

May 9 -13 – Little Steven’s Underground Garage Cruise – Miami, FL

June 1 – Pappy & Harriet’s – Pioneertown, CA+

June 2 – Casbah – San Diego, CA+

June 3 – Zebulon – Los Angeles, CA+

June 4 – The Chapel – San Francisco, CA

June 6 – Mississippi Studios – Portland, OR

June 7 – Tractor Tavern – Seattle, WA

June 8 – Biltmore Cabaret – Vancouver, BC

July 18 & 19 – Woodtick Fest – Darby, MT

September 10 – Intuition Ale Works – Jacksonville, FL*

September 11 – Saturn – Birmingham, AL*

September 12 – Terminal West – Atlanta, GA*

September 13 – 40 Watt Club – Athens, GA*

September 16 – Codfish Hollow – Maquoketa, IA*

September 17 – Fine Line – Minneapolis, MN*

September 18 – Thalia Hall – Chicago, IL*

September 19 – Bell’s Beer Garden – Kalamazoo, MI*

September 20 – Mr. Smalls Theatre – Millvale, PA*

September 21 – White Eagle Hall – Jersey City, NJ*

September 23 – Crystal Ballroom – Somerville, MA*

September 24 – World Cafe Live – Philadelphia, PA*

September 25 – The Hamilton – Washington, DC*

September 26 – The Broadberry – Richmond, VA*

September 27 – Cat’s Cradle – Carrboro, NC*

 

+w/ Vicki Peterson & John Cowsill

*w/ The Baseball Project

 

From left: Peter Buck, Kurt Bloch, Linda Pitmon, Scott McCaughey, Debbi Peterson / photo credit: Mary Winzig 

 

 

Oar On, Penelope! Tracklisting

1. Words & Birds

2. Death the Bludgeoner

3. Let the Rope Hold, Cassie Lee

4. I Don’t Want to Hate Anyone

5. The Garden of Arden

6. Last Hotel

7. Bison Queen

8. Falling Like Jets

9. Burgundy Suit

10. Blow in My Bag

11. Sharktooth

12. What Shall Not Be Released 

 

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