Japanese Breakfast Soft Sounds From Another Planet Review

Japanese Breakfast's sophomore album, Soft Sounds From Another Planet, is out now on Dead Oceans. Ebru Yildiz/Courtesy of the artist hibernate explanation

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Ebru Yildiz/Courtesy of the artist

With a meandering, half-dozen-minute-plus sci-fi-sounding opening rail, it was clear that Japanese Breakfast's Michelle Zauner was out to brand music that was across the iii-minute-popular found on her solo debut, Pyschopomp. The more I dug into Soft Sounds From Some other Planet, Zauner's follow-up album, the more I wanted to know. In that location are references to robot love ("Machinist"), deep love ("Till Decease"), a lap-steel guitar solo ("Soft Sounds From Another Planet") and the Grandaddy-inspired synth-pop of "Body is a Blade."

And so nosotros asked Michelle Zauner to walk us through her second anthology, track by runway. Information technology'due south a record that deals with the saddest parts of life, in this case the loss of her mom, as well equally the magic of life — including her recent marriage to Psychopomp bassist Peter Bradley.

Diving Woman

"There'due south an island in South korea called Jeju that's famous for its female divers, [who are called] haenyeo. With each dive, many haenyeo can plunge upwardly to 30 meters and concord their jiff for over iii minutes. They collect abalone, conch, sea urchins and oysters and sell them at the market. I really admire the haenyeo -- that lifestyle, of regimen and endurance, was inspiring to me, particularly during a time when I was touring a lot. I think this song is too partially nearly feeling guilty almost beingness a touring woman, and the fear that people were judging me for putting my career higher up having a family.

"I really wanted to have a long song first off the record, since Psychopomp was so short, and unremarkably my songs are quite short pop songs, in general. I actually wanted to create that same meandering, interlocking guitar feel — like that Deerhunter song 'Desire Lines.'"

Road Caput

"This was another song I revamped from my lo-fi tape American Sound . I wrote it about someone I dated who fabricated me experience like I wasn't cutting out for my ain music career. It'due south sort of about that really ugly moment when you effort to do something sexually wild to relieve a relationship, just to brand it more than painfully credible that it's not going to work.

"The second poesy has a quote from something I read nearly Tammy Wynette. I really fell for Tammy nearly a year ago. I love the sort of tongue-and-cheek melodrama of her songs. I read that when she left her first husband to pursue a career in music, he told her 'dream on, baby.' Years later, later on she was famous, he attended i of her shows and asked for her autograph. She signed it 'dream on, baby.'"

Machinist

"This was the first song I wrote for the record. It's about a woman who falls in dear with a robot. It started with the synth line, and I had this idea for the spoken word, and sort of like a hip-hop skit in the centre. I got really shy nearly information technology at first, simply Craig Hendrix, who co-produced the album with me, actually encouraged me to keep going. This was the kickoff of Craig and I working together on the projection. Working with him was so piece of cake and fun and inspiring, there was no way I was going to work with anyone else on the rest of the album. He had the bright idea to incorporate the vocoder harmonies. I forget who came upwards with the idea to practise the automobile-tune... I had done a cover of Cher's "Believe" effectually this fourth dimension, and so that may accept been its beginning.

"The transition from 'Road Caput' is the sound of the Juno 6 being kind of cleaved and fuzzing out. I think information technology sounds kind of like the bounding main and it gave the states the idea to add some samples of current of air to the introduction of the vocal, similar I'm on a alone windy planet."

Planetary Ambience

"I love incorporating instrumental tracks onto albums. I think it just is a dainty mode to help a record breathe. It's some sort of reversed keyboard loop. The weird little bleeps are sounds I made with an OP-1. I wanted information technology to sound like two satellites talking. They kind of remind me of Wall-E."

Soft Sounds From Another Planet

"This started equally 'Day 30' from my album June, which was a lo-fi tape I made in June 2014, where I wrote and recorded songs every 24-hour interval for the month of June. I wrote this song about a by partner who was very jealous. I couldn't sympathise why this person was so vicious to me all the time. For the album version I added some instrumental sections and an additional chorus and verse, and I call back the vocal became more about what I've endured since then, and how I could never let anyone treat me that way once again.

"There'due south a lap steel solo — on a lap steel I was making my husband donate because he never used information technology. Craig happened to see it in the machine and claimed it last minute. I find it hilarious information technology actually fabricated it's way on the record."

Boyish

"This song started as "Twenty-four hour period half dozen" on June, was revamped and appeared on Little Large League's Tropical Jinx, and then revamped over again for this tape. I simply hated the way we bundled and produced information technology in Little Big League, and I nevertheless really loved the chorus lyrics and the way the melody lifted, so I wanted to rearrange it. Craig is wonderful at coming upward with song harmonies. I e'er joke that Craig sings similar a Disney Prince, his voice is just so total and objectively cute, I recollect information technology makes my squawk sound a bit prettier when nosotros sing together.

"Actually I think we arranged and recorded this generally in one day. We tried to redo the drums and vocals, but nosotros were so fastened to the original that it just didn't audio right when we put the new versions in. So the song is really the scratch have, just 1 take I think recorded on a Beta 57."

12 Steps

"There is a bar in South Philly, chosen 12 Steps Down, where I met my husband. I was seeing someone else at the time, but I just knew I needed to be with this person. And then it'south sort of an apology song to them. It'due south nothing personal, I just establish the love of my life and I've gotta go now."

Jimmy Fallon Big!

"I wrote this song about the bass role player of Little Big League. He'd been offered a better touring gig and so he sat me downward at my kitchen table and told me he had to quit the band considering this other band were going to be 'Jimmy Fallon large.' At the time it felt similar losing a brother, and there was this shame, feeling like I was never going to become there myself. Funny enough, he now plays bass in Japanese Breakfast! At present we just need to play Jimmy Fallon and the cycle will exist complete!"

The Body Is A Blade

This song is about trying to figure out how to exist a good person later on something really terrible happens in your life. It's about disassociating from trauma and relying on your body to physically keep pushing forward in an effort to survive. I guess I was begging myself to not to autumn into a deep depression after my mom died. You're alive, you lot have to continue moving. Nosotros used the Juno 6 for that fluttery keyboard sound that's all over the record, which I dearest considering it reminds me of Grandaddy."

Till Decease

"I call up this song is my favorite. It'south a love vocal, a thank-you lot to my partner for continuing by my side through to the end of a really painful year. It's a long list of awful things life is full of — expiry, genetic affliction, anger, and how you never really know how much someone loves y'all until you find them at the terminate of this long tunnel of painful things you endure, waiting for you to come through to the other side. I think the title is funny. Similar nosotros are all just biding our time, tilling towards death.

"I wrote information technology in the studio while, I think, Craig was comping drums. I started with the keyboard line and about stopped considering I thought it sounded besides cheesy. Craig encouraged me to keep going by telling me it reminded him of The Carpenters. That's pretty much the highest compliment I can remember of so I kept going, and wound upwards actually loving it. And then Craig suggested nosotros throw in a fundamental change at the cease and nosotros added some more than 'Disney-prince' harmonies to really polish the whole thing off."

This House

"This was the last song I wrote for the anthology. A carol about returning home subsequently a long tour, waiting for your someone to come home. It's also about the confused desires you feel for someone yous one time loved, and coming to the realization that it's not really the person you miss, but who you were before. A time when y'all were younger and felt more and didn't call back and then much about death all the time."

Here Come the Tubular Bells

"This was originally going to be the championship of the record. A lot of the songs are about matrimony and finding someone to love you through the really ugly parts of life. It's a pitiful but hopeful reprise.

"Shout out to Michael Johnson for hooking usa up with the tubular bells at UArts. This was the last affair we recorded for the album and later on Craig and I had a glass of champagne at the Ritz, not knowing it would cost $25 a drinking glass. Nosotros did get to run across David Spade in a Bass Pro baseball cap there, which made it kind of worth it."

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Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2017/07/14/536439859/japanese-breakfast-soft-sounds-from-another-planet

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