Biography
Michelle Zauner of Philadelphia operates under the solo project name Japanese Breakfast, which has earned acclaim for its creatively adventurous yet profoundly personal strain of indie pop. Stepping away temporarily from Little Big League, she introduced the project in 2013 via the cassette June, whose melodic yet lo-fi character set an early tone. While maintaining activity with Little Big League, Zauner broadened her instrumental range by incorporating atmospheric synths, electric guitars, and electronics across the 2016 release Psychopomp and the 2017 album Soft Sounds from Another Planet. Her 2021 memoir Crying in H Mart reached the number-two position on the New York Times nonfiction best-seller list, tracing her Korean heritage amid the aftermath of her mother’s death from cancer; the same year also saw the Grammy-nominated companion album Jubilee and her original score for the video game Sable. Japanese Breakfast resurfaced in 2025 with For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women), produced by Blake Mills.
Zauner entered the world in Seoul, South Korea, in 1989, born to a Korean mother and a Jewish-American father; the family relocated to Eugene, Oregon, during her infancy. She later enrolled at Bryn Mawr College and performed in multiple indie rock groups before establishing Little Big League near the end of 2011. Returning to Oregon in 2013 to assist with her mother’s cancer care, Zauner launched Japanese Breakfast through a month-long daily songwriting exercise that yielded the intimate, electric-guitar-driven lo-fi recordings of June, issued on cassette by Ranch Records. She persisted with both solo and band work, issuing the summer-2014 releases Where Is My Great Big Feeling? on Yellow K Records and the Seagreen Records cassette American Sound, followed by Little Big League’s Tropical Jinx in October of that year.
Psychopomp arrived in spring 2016 on Yellow K Records as Zauner’s first full-length under the Japanese Breakfast name, employing markedly larger, synth-augmented textures that linked lo-fi origins with indie pop. The album processed the emotional aftermath of her mother’s passing and was initially conceived as a singular statement; Zauner soon reconsidered, moved to Dead Oceans for a wider reissue of Psychopomp, and collaborated again with producer Craig Hendrix—previously responsible for Little Big League’s debut—to craft a more expansive follow-up. The pair performed most instrumental parts and shifted the sessions from bedroom confines to a larger room, after which an expansive mix by Jorge Elbrecht further enlarged the sound. Themes of grief, deceased pop stars, outer space, and forward movement shaped Soft Sounds from Another Planet, which Dead Oceans released in July 2017 to prominent placements on numerous year-end critics’ lists.
Additional sessions with Hendrix produced a third album in 2019, this time emphasizing sprightly, pop-oriented arrangements enriched by strings and horns; pandemic delays postponed its release until June 2021, when Jubilee entered the Independent and Alternative albums charts at number seven. During the same period Zauner composed the memoir Crying in H Mart, released months ahead of Jubilee and likewise centered on her Korean roots following her mother’s death; the book attained the number-two spot on the New York Times nonfiction best-seller list. In September 2021 Japanese Breakfast also delivered the soundtrack for Shedworks and Raw Fury’s game Sable, and by year’s end Jubilee had earned Grammy nominations for Best Alternative Album and Best New Artist.
After supporting tours alongside Florence and the Machine and the National, Zauner resided for much of 2024 in Seoul, where she studied Korean at Sogang University’s Korean Language Education Center while beginning work on fresh material. The lilting single “Orlando in Love” appeared in January 2025, previewing the fourth album For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women). Recorded in Los Angeles under Blake Mills, the record adopted a darker, more literary perspective than its predecessors.
Zauner entered the world in Seoul, South Korea, in 1989, born to a Korean mother and a Jewish-American father; the family relocated to Eugene, Oregon, during her infancy. She later enrolled at Bryn Mawr College and performed in multiple indie rock groups before establishing Little Big League near the end of 2011. Returning to Oregon in 2013 to assist with her mother’s cancer care, Zauner launched Japanese Breakfast through a month-long daily songwriting exercise that yielded the intimate, electric-guitar-driven lo-fi recordings of June, issued on cassette by Ranch Records. She persisted with both solo and band work, issuing the summer-2014 releases Where Is My Great Big Feeling? on Yellow K Records and the Seagreen Records cassette American Sound, followed by Little Big League’s Tropical Jinx in October of that year.
Psychopomp arrived in spring 2016 on Yellow K Records as Zauner’s first full-length under the Japanese Breakfast name, employing markedly larger, synth-augmented textures that linked lo-fi origins with indie pop. The album processed the emotional aftermath of her mother’s passing and was initially conceived as a singular statement; Zauner soon reconsidered, moved to Dead Oceans for a wider reissue of Psychopomp, and collaborated again with producer Craig Hendrix—previously responsible for Little Big League’s debut—to craft a more expansive follow-up. The pair performed most instrumental parts and shifted the sessions from bedroom confines to a larger room, after which an expansive mix by Jorge Elbrecht further enlarged the sound. Themes of grief, deceased pop stars, outer space, and forward movement shaped Soft Sounds from Another Planet, which Dead Oceans released in July 2017 to prominent placements on numerous year-end critics’ lists.
Additional sessions with Hendrix produced a third album in 2019, this time emphasizing sprightly, pop-oriented arrangements enriched by strings and horns; pandemic delays postponed its release until June 2021, when Jubilee entered the Independent and Alternative albums charts at number seven. During the same period Zauner composed the memoir Crying in H Mart, released months ahead of Jubilee and likewise centered on her Korean roots following her mother’s death; the book attained the number-two spot on the New York Times nonfiction best-seller list. In September 2021 Japanese Breakfast also delivered the soundtrack for Shedworks and Raw Fury’s game Sable, and by year’s end Jubilee had earned Grammy nominations for Best Alternative Album and Best New Artist.
After supporting tours alongside Florence and the Machine and the National, Zauner resided for much of 2024 in Seoul, where she studied Korean at Sogang University’s Korean Language Education Center while beginning work on fresh material. The lilting single “Orlando in Love” appeared in January 2025, previewing the fourth album For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women). Recorded in Los Angeles under Blake Mills, the record adopted a darker, more literary perspective than its predecessors.
Albums
Materialists (Original Soundtrack)
2025
For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)
2025
Sable (Original Video Game Soundtrack)
2021
Jubilee
2021
Soft Sounds from Another Planet
2017
Psychopomp
2016
Singles
