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Japanese Breakfast 2025 press shot credit Pak Bae

Japanese Breakfast announces forthcoming album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)

07 January 2025, 15:04 | Written by Tyler Damara Kelly

Japanese Breakfast has returned with the announcement of their fourth studio album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), alongside the lead single, "Orlando In Love".

On the album’s lead single "Orlando in Love" — a riff on John Cheever’s riff on Orlando Innamorato, an unfinished epic made up of 68 ½ cantos by the Renaissance poet Matteo Maria Boiardo — the hero is a well meaning poet who parks his Winnebago by the sea and falls victim to a siren’s call, his 69th canto (even in the lofty realm of classical myth Zauner has a soft spot for innuendo).

For Melancholy Brunettes follows a transformative period in Zauner’s life during which her GRAMMY nominated breakthrough album Jubilee and her bestselling memoir Crying In H Mart catapulted her into the cultural mainstream, delivering on her deepest artistic ambitions. Reflecting on that success, Zauner came to appreciate the irony of desire, which so often commingles bliss and doom. “I felt seduced by getting what I always wanted,” she says. “I was flying too close to the sun, and I realised if I kept going I was going to die.”

After a decade making the most of improvised recording spaces set in warehouses, trailers and lofts, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) marks the band’s first proper studio release. It was produced by Grammy Award winner Blake Mills (Bob Dylan, Fiona Apple) and recorded at Sound City in Los Angeles — birthplace of After The Gold Rush, Fleetwood Mac and Nevermind among other classics.

Japanese Breakfast is announcing a 2025 tour in support of For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) that 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, and sees them visit Oslo, Copenhagen, Manchester, Glasgow, London, and more.

Tracklist:

  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

For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), is set for release on 21 March via Dead Oceans, and is available to pre-order now. Pre-sale for the tour begins on 8 January, with general sale from 10 January at 10am local time via japanesebreakfast.rocks.

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