Four years after her Grammy-nominated album, Jubilee, and the bestselling memoir Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner has returned. Her band, Japanese Breakfast, will drop their new LP For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) on March 21 via Dead Oceans.
To accompany the announcement, the indie pop band released the lead single “Orlando in Love,” a subtle track with an elegant string arrangement. “Orlando in Love” was inspired by Renaissance poet Matteo Maria Boiardo’s “Orlando Innamorato” — an unfinished epic containing 68 1/2 cantos — as well as writer John Cheever’s riff on the poem. The video features two Zauners: one singing the delicate track, while another dances in an iridescent shell à la Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus.
For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) marks Japanese Breakfast’s fourth album, following the mainstream success of Jubilee and Crying in H Mart (in 2023, it was announced that Will Sharpe will direct the film adaptation). “I felt seduced by getting what I always wanted,” she said, reflecting on that period. “I was flying too close to the sun, and I realized if I kept going, I was going to die.”
The new album, produced by Blake Mills, was made at the iconic Sound City in Los Angeles — the first time the band recorded in a “proper” studio setting, as they had previously cut records in warehouses, lofts, and trailers.
For Melancholy Brunettes is made up of 10 tracks, including “Men in Bars” featuring actor Jeff Bridges and “Magic Mountain.” According to Zauner, the latter, inspired by Thomas Mann’s 1924 novel of the same name (and not to be confused with Father John Misty’s “So I’m Growing Old on Magic Mountain”), is about “confronting the narcissism that goes into being an artist, and deciding I didn’t want it to destroy my potential for having a happy life.”
Japanese Breakfast will tour in support of the album this spring, kicking off at Coachella 2025 in April, as well as stops in major cities like Austin, Nashville, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia. The trek wraps at the Palace Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Sept. 9.
For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) 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
From Rolling Stone US
