The Quietus

“I want it all” Michelle Zauner wistfully and repeatedly cries on this album’s opening track ‘Diving Woman’. It’s a lyric that describes the tone of this whole second album, as her ambitious spirit pushes her to evolve. Zauner's subtle sensuality reminds me of Lana Del Rey’s nostalgia-laced storytelling, with a driving bassline and twinkly guitar behind it that's like some mix between LCD Soundsystem and Frankie Cosmos. The rest of the album only builds from there.

Luckily for us, on Soft Sounds From Another Planet Zauner also holds onto the rough-around-the-edges heartfelt intensity from her debut, last year's Psychopomp. When I met her, as she opened for similarly heartfelt singer-songwriter Mitski in Berkeley back in spring 2016, I was struck by the honesty with which she presents herself on stage and on record. It’s a quality that is essential to my appreciation of Japanese Breakfast and many other indie-alternative artists characterised by their songwriting, and also a quality that makes me nervous with each of these artist’s new albums. All too often, of course, brilliant songwriters lose their charm and relatability as they try to grow and flesh out their discography. Michelle Zauner, though, walks the line between zealous production and slowed-down intimacy, and this record confirms my hope that she is capable of much more than one magnificent debut.

Psychopomp was filled with dark lyrics about taking care of her dying mother and the emotional confusion that comes with speeding up a relationship so she could marry before her mother passed. Formerly the front woman for Little Big League, Zauner created Japanese Breakfast so she could make music on her own terms, feeling her role in LBL was too set and unchangeable for the swinging emotions she needed to get out. Continuing the solo project, presumably with the intent of maintaining personal control and flexibility, it makes sense that notes of Zauner’s debut arise through the transformed eye of someone now a few years past her mother’s death and having settled into her marriage. Perhaps her sound has matured so gracefully because Soft Sounds is the product of the same strong-headed woman who knows herself a little better now.

Laced with extraterrestrial atmospheric intros and outros, standalone experimental tracks like 'Planetary Ambience', and slightly tongue-in-cheek speeches like that at the top of lead single 'Machinist', the album also packs in multiple playlist-worthy tracks exemplary of a tone that is distinctively new but still echoes the old Japanese Breakfast. Though there’s likely never going to be another 'Everybody Wants to Love You' (the childishly charming breakthrough track from her debut that would most certainly get old if she were to try and repeat it), 'Road Head' has some of the same cynical pleasantries, and the album still maintains the arc from synth-y opening track to 'Soft Sounds From Another Planet' towards the middle to slow ballad at the end. There are songs that are entirely new for Zauner, too, like anxious ballad ‘Body is a Blade’ and 'Boyish', my favourite song on the album. Perhaps the best example of her evolution, 'Boyish' describes the conflict between Zauner’s adult independence and a lover’s unpredictably appealing childish behavior in a swooning, deliberate manner.

Perhaps with age comes an ability to separate herself from the music a little more - not in the sense of making it less heartfelt, but just a little less literal. Though only loosely sculpted, the album has a planetary theme, only directly appearing on a few tracks through imaginative storytelling and a heavier reliance on glittery-sounding synths than we’ve seen before. It does feel much more thought-out, though, as if Zauner had more deliberate intentions for how the songs would transition between each other than collecting tunes written in heats of passion and heartbreak like on Psychopomp. The result is an album that holds your attention, smoothly mixing up tempos and degrees of sadness as it goes along.

Though the album is more experimental than we might have expected, it has the most value in its layers - it pulls at the heartstrings because of its detailed, sombre storytelling but is still something that can be played casually and in pieces. With it, Michelle Zauner carves out her place as a solo artist, floating in a realm between indie, alternative, and punk in the sense that Chastity Belt or Girlpool might describe themselves as such. Complemented with self-directed, consistently alcohol-filled, funny and unnerving videos, the album showcases Zauner’s independence. Japanese Breakfast is turning into an artist with much to adore, unabashedly authentic but creating music that we can still all see a little bit of ourselves in.

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Pitchfork 80

Inspired by the cosmos, Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner addresses life on Earth. Her voice shines over melancholic arrangements, evoking Pacific Northwest indie rock as much as shoegaze.

Drowned In Sound 80

Oregon-born Zauner, who records under the name Japanese Breakfast, was featured alongside other artists who do not fit the straight, white male indie cliché, including Vagabon, Sacred Paws and Nadine Shah. It is an article rightly giving these oft-ignored musicians a well-deserved spotlight, in a national newspaper no less, no matter how carelessly the term 'woke' has been thrown around recently.

While some artists choose to write directly about the experiences brought up in this feature – Nadine Shah’s third album, Holiday Destination, addresses the rise of nationalism in the UK and will be released next month – there is a lot to be said for understanding that these artists do not have to write about being black, or multiracial, or queer, the whole time. There is no denying that political music has been having a 'moment' for the last few years – think Beyonce’s Lemonade or Kendrick Lamar’s Damn.

These features are as much a part of a musician’s identity as they would like them to be – and should be celebrated as much as they wish. But artists should also be given the opportunity to write music that is lauded for its pure musical value, not only because their songwriting shines a light on important political or social issues. An artist can be just a musician – not a 'female musician', a 'black musician', or a 'transgender musician', as if anyone that isn’t straight, white and male deviates from the norm. Sometimes it’s also quite nice to focus just on the music.

The second Japanese Breakfast album, Soft Sounds From Another Planet, is purely sonically engaging. Originally part of Little Big League, the Philadelphia-based emo band who released two studio albums in 2013 and 2014, Zauner has stitched together her own more complex and more personally-motivated guitar melodies for her second solo album of experimental pop. In interviews, Zauner has spoken about her choice to record under a name which is a concoction of her Korean-American heritage – an indication of Asianness alongside the all-American 'breakfast' – but this record transcends racial identity. While personal stories and a querying of the self are present, it is to outer space that Soft Sounds From Another Planet looks for answers.

As Zauner looks to the cosmos, burbling synths open the record on ‘Diving Woman’. On the title track, twanging guitar takes up just as much space as Zauner’s ethereal vocals. When these vocals do take the lead, they flitter between a soft whisper and a powerful shriek. This is a vocalist perfectly in control of the momentum of her sound, be it one of Earth or otherwise. The instrumental ‘Planetary Ambience’ is supposedly the sound of extra-terrestrials communicating, as synths build a conversation, but it sounds intriguingly urban, more the soundscape of a city for humans. ‘Machinist’ details the tale of a woman falling in love with a machine – a sci-fi narrative if you’ve ever heard one.

Despite its incessant interest in what exists beyond the human, Soft Sounds From Another Planet still manages poignancy.

Its finest moment comes on ‘Till Death’, where drums are brushed and muted horns swell underneath Zauner’s reverse-lullaby calls of “Sing me to sleep”. Her listing of “PTSD, anxiety…”, before a bluesy saxophone outro leaves the spacious tenderness of this track ringing in your ears.

This album is anything but a fad. It hangs around long after you listen, subdued but resolute in its capabilities. It is very much here to stay. Zauner is a woman of colour, and she is a fantastic musician. It is up to her whether she fits these characteristics alongside each other, or chooses to highlight one more than the other in a career that is bound to blossom.

The Guardian 80

(Dead Oceans)

Psychopomp, Korean American Michelle Zauner’s 2016 debut as Japanese Breakfast, was an emotional response to her mother’s death from cancer. The follow-up finds the singer beginning the process of healing. The vast sonic palette perhaps mirrors the way that a devastating loss can heighten the senses. Fizzing electro, hazy shoegaze, funk basslines, electronica and even an 80s pop sax solo blend together into a bittersweet, happy-sad soundtrack.

“Where are you?” she cries at one point; “I never realised how much you were holding back,” at another. Although it’s mostly dreamlike and existential, the album soars with its shimmering pop songs. The title track’s plangent twangs have a hint of John Lennon’s transcendent #9 Dream. The Body Is a Blade could be a spacey Sundays. The acoustic, sultry This House features aching yearning of a more romantic kind. The towering Boyish could be an imaginary Phil Spector production of Lykke Li – big-lunged pop, but with a melancholy soul.

Tiny Mix Tapes 60

Japanese Breakfast
Soft Sounds From Another Planet

[Dead Oceans; 2017]

Rating: 3/5