Japanese Breakfast played Union Pool (pics), doing a screening/Q&A tonight
Japanese Breakfast released the excellent Soft Sounds from Another Planet on Friday (7/14) via Dead Oceans, and celebrated its release the next day with a free afternoon Summer Thunder show at Union Pool on Saturday (7/15) that was packed with people by the time openers Yohuna went on. Although it was a bright (and hot) enough day that main JB member Michelle Zauner needed to fashion a makeshift pedal shield out of cardboard so she could see her pedals in the sun, Japanese Breakfast had no trouble playing under the sun. It was a treat to hear Michelle and her band perform songs off the new album, and some from 2016’s Psychopomp, in such an intimate setting.
Japanese Breakfast were recently on tour with (Sandy) Alex G, including two NYC shows. JB go back out on tour later this month, playing a few shows with Tegan and Sara, and then doing a run with Mannequin Pussy and Spirit of the Beehive in the fall. That tour stops at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg on October 12 (tickets).
Additionally, Japanese Breakfast and director Adam Kolodny will be screening The Master, as well as the band’s music videos, TONIGHT (7/17) at Roxy Cinema TriBeCa. They’ll also be doing a post-screening Q&A. RSVP is open for the screening, which is free.
Like we said in our review, the new album, Michelle Zauner’s first for Dead Oceans and second as Japanese Breakfast, is a noticeable step up from anything she’s done before. If you’re craving more insight behind the songs on Soft Sounds, Michelle explained the album, track by track, to NPR. “Boyish” had another incarnation as a song from Little Big League, and a few songs started out as tracks from Michelle’s 2014 lo-fi tape where she wrote and recorded songs every day for the month of June.
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photos by Amanda Hatfield
