Japanese Breakfast beats Melbourne cold with warm presence and irresistible performance
Japanese Breakfast ★★★★
PICA, June 5
'It's so cold here! What's going on?' says Michelle Zauner, driving force behind indie darlings Japanese Breakfast. Yes, it's cold in Melbourne right now, and especially in PICA, a big empty shed in Port Melbourne with uneven concrete floors and unlit portaloos. Everyone's wearing massive coats and basking in our collective body heat, while cursing our friends at the Jessica Pratt show in the warm, acoustically luxuriant recital hall.
But I'm at a Japanese Breakfast show and thrilled about it. It's been eight years since they last visited, and since then they've put out the breakthrough hit album Jubilee and this year's literate, almost baroque For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women), and Zauner has written a bestselling memoir, Crying in H Mart. She writes songs dense with emotion and pathos, and performs them irresistibly.
The six-piece opens with three songs from the new album, all dripping with Zauner's great lyrics and the band's rich instrumentation. She's in a frilly shirt and torn tights. Saxophone dances with flute as the lights play with the stage smoke. 'The breeze carries salt / And sipping milky broth / He cast his gaze towards the sea out / The Winnebago,' she sings on Orlando in Love. It's dreamlike.
The sound bounces around indie genres. Honey Water leans into shoegaze. Slide Tackle – which she introduces with a cry of 'No more melancholy!' – plays with disco. The guitar finger slide comes out for the country-tinged Men In Bars, with drummer Craig Hendrix sharing the vocals, a part originally performed by Jeff Bridges.
Throughout, Zauner's voice is so expressive and full of intent, and her presence is tirelessly warm and breezy. She introduces Winter in LA as being about 'being miserable in lovely places', a contrast that could apply to the whole set.
It's not easy to tour to Australia in the '20s. As Zauner tells us, it's so far away and expensive ('IT IS EXPENSIVE!' someone validates from the crowd). But even with high overheads, Zauner wasn't skimping on the massive gong at the back of the stage, used only for the chorus of Paprika in the encore. Correct decision.
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