Japanese Breakfast: For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) (frosted shadow-coloured vinyl) [DEAD OCEANS]

Why you'll love it

This frosted shadow-coloured pressing comes in a gatefold jacket with a printed inner sleeve. The album scored 84 on Metacritic, and NME, DIY and Dork all gave it five stars.

This edition

• Frosted shadow-coloured vinyl
• Gatefold jacket
• Printed inner sleeve
• Mastered at Bernie Grundman Mastering
• Poster included

About the album

After the sunny, Grammy-nominated Jubilee and a bestselling memoir, Michelle Zauner could have done a victory lap. Instead she went looking for shadows. For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) chases what she called the psychic state of poets on the verge of inspiration, and it is the first Japanese Breakfast record made in a proper professional studio, at the famous Sound City in Los Angeles.

Producer Blake Mills plays guitar, piano and percussion all over it and keeps the arrangements hushed and painterly. "Orlando in Love" lent the album its title, a phrase Zauner borrowed from a John Cheever short story and filed away because it made her laugh. "Mega Circuit" bristles a little harder, "Honey Water" and "Little Girl" glow quietly, "Picture Window" aches, and "Magic Mountain" sends the record out on a long exhale. There's gamelan, mandolin and even a recorder in the mix, all handled with a light touch.

Under the Radar put it at No. 12 of 2025 and filed it alongside famous fourth albums that followed a breakthrough. It is, by design, a record for grey afternoons, which in Toronto gives it a shelf life of roughly eight months a year.

Also at Kops: more Japanese Breakfast on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Dead Oceans (cat# DOC425), the 2025 album.