After returning with the stellar single “Orlando in Love,” Japanese Breakfast are back for more.
“Mega Circuit,” the latest cut off the upcoming For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women), kicks off with sublime drums and guitar. The video, created by Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner and her frequent collaborator Adam Kolodny, features some shenanigans in the woods: ATVs, zip lining, and a rifle.
Zauner said “Mega Circuit” was one of the first songs she penned and that she was “intent on making a creepier, more guitar-driven record.”
“The song is sort of an examination of contemporary masculinity, and explores a conflicted desire to embrace a generation that in the absence of positive role models has found refuge in violence and bigotry,” she offered in a statement. “We had the legendary Jim Keltner — who’s played on everything from ‘These Days,’ to ‘Here You Come Again’ to ‘Dream Weaver’ — come in and play the fiercest shuffle you’ve ever heard.”
“Mega Circuit” is the fourth track off the Blake Mills-produced For Melancholy Brunettes, which arrives on March 21. It marks Japanese Breakfast’s fourth album, following 2021’s Jubilee (and her bestselling memoir Crying in H Mart). “I felt seduced by getting what I always wanted,” Zauner said of that period. “I was flying too close to the sun, and I realized if I kept going, I was going to die.”
Japanese Breakfast dropped an artistic video for “Orlando in Love” last month, and recently performed it on The Tonight Show. “I fell in love with the title and envisioned a sort of whimsical, foolish male protagonist who lives by the sea in a Winnebago RV and is seduced by a siren,” Zauner said.
The band will tour in support of the new album, kicking off at Coachella on April 12 and 19. She’ll play multiple nights at major cities, including New York City (May 9 through 12 at Brooklyn Paramount), and two evenings at San Francisco (Aug. 27 and 28 at the Masonic).
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