Japanese Breakfast has announced her highly-anticipated third album, Jubilee, scheduled for release on June 4. The new record announcement comes with the release of the MV for lead single ‘Be Sweet’.

Japanese Breakfast, the musical project of Michelle Zauner, has announced her follow-up album to 2017’s critically-lauded Soft Sounds from Another Planet.

The artist’s third album, titled Jubilee, is now available for pre-order via Dead Oceans.

The new album announcement comes with the release of a music video directed by Zauner herself for its lead single, the 80’s-inspired pop song ‘Be Sweet’.

Zauner says,

“After spending the last five years writing about grief, I wanted our follow up to be about joy. For me, a third record should feel bombastic and so I wanted to pull out all the stops for this one. I wrote ‘Be Sweet’ with Jack Tatum from Wild Nothing a few years ago. I’ve been holding onto it for so long and am so excited to finally put it out there.”

Zauner describes Jubilee‘s music as “joyful noise” and “the most wide-ranging arrangements” of her career. Like the word itself, the record is a celebration of the passage of time.

Her first two albums, 2015’s Psychopomp and 2017’s Soft Sounds from Another Planet grappled with anguish with the former written as Zauner’s mother underwent cancer treatment while the latter dealt with the grief she held from her mother’s death.

Now, Japanese Breakfast is ready to explore joy with Jubilee – an album about processing life and love in the quest for happiness, and how that process sometimes requires us to step outside of ourselves.

The musician took theory lessons and studied piano while developing the new record to improve her skills as a songwriter.

She says,

“I’ve never wanted to rest on any laurels. I wanted to push it as far as it could go, inviting more people in and pushing myself as a composer, a producer, an arranger.” 

Additionally, Zauner is releasing her long-awaited book based on her viral 2018 New Yorker essay, Crying In H Mart. The unflinching and powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity is due April 20th via Knopf.

Japanese Breakfast – Jubilee Tracklist
June 4, 2021

1. Paprika
2. Be Sweet
3. Kokomo, IN
4. Slide Tackle
5. Posing in Bondage
6. Sit
7. Savage Good Boy
8. In Hell
9. Tactics
10. Posing for Cars

For more Japanese Breakfast, listen to her music via Spotify below.

Photo credit: Peter Ash