How the Japanese breakfast made Jeff Bridges sing on his new album (exclusive)

For Michelle Zauner, 2021 was a year that changes the situation. Not only has she published her third studio album acclaimed by critics Jubileewho obtained a grammy nomination alongside a sign of the best new artist, but she also published her first dissertation, the New York Times bestseller Cry in H MartWho detailed his vulnerable story of sorrow after losing his mother against terminal cancer and connecting with his Korean identity.

The success for her was surprising. “It has completely changed my life,” said the 35 -year -old artist to people on her home Zoom in Brooklyn, NY, “it gave me a great opportunity, validation and financial support.”

This also allowed her to become more “courageous” in her creative work because she finally had a “safety net”.

“In some respects, (what) Cry in H Mart And Jubilee I really gave me (the idea): “Well, I did everything, I did everything I wanted and more, and now I just want to do what is exciting me,” she explains.

So when Zauner, who heads the Japanese breakfast of Shoegazey Indie-Rock, started making his next album, It was Liberating.

“As you put this pressure to achieve something in your career or to earn more fans, this is the moment when your art dies,” notes the author / musician.

Instead, she calls her fourth album For melancholy brunettes (and sad women) his “artist record”. “All I could do is continue what interests me the most,” she explains.

Notably, For melancholy brunettes (and sad women)Who was recorded in December 2023, is a departure from his LP 2021. When he was announced, the title – a line of a short story by John Cheever – has become the online division. Zauner remembers a person who wrote: “What label let him do this?” But, according to her, the label, more than anyone, “loved” the title.

“I wanted to have a slightly unpleasant title,” she said, laughing. “I always liked when artists have slightly boring titles. I think (smashing pumpkins’s album) Mellon Collie and infinite sadness is a boring title, and (Fiona Apple) When the pawn is a boring title. There is a 1975 file called, I love it when you sleep, because you are so beautiful but so unconscious.“”

As the title suggests, the songs are not only melancholy but sometimes dissonant. “Many people have taken it literally and in a stupid way,” she said. “Those who get it, get it, and those who don’t do it, don’t do it.” In the end, Zauner thought that the title was a “great descriptor”.

While making the album, Zauner, as she often does, found inspiration in books. She knew that she wanted to make a “darker album”, so she read Gothic literature and European romanticism and the “strangely” books that fell under the “umbrella of the Canon Incel”. She was inspired by a painful coffee girl in the “absinthe” of Degas and the desire and the passion of Wuthering Heights.

In the past, Zauner had only exploited people who had self -produced their own work or the groups of their friends for his albums. But with her latest project, she knew she wanted to work with a veteran producer. Zauner “made blind producer dates” in Los Angeles and discovered that she clicks the most with Blake Mills.

Contrary to JubileeHer next project has been widely written on guitar, which made Mills – a well -known producer, songwriter -performer and session guitarist – an ideal adjustment for her.

There is an inherent bad humor that resonates throughout the disc. On the main single ropes “Orlando in Love”, inspired by the 15th century Italian poem “Orlando Innamorato”, tells a story of a poet that is attracted to the sea by a mermaid. “Mega Circuit”, is a scary and Fiona Apple-Meet-Jean number which meditates on contemporary masculinity. Meanwhile, the song tinged with steel pedal “Picture Window” ruminates about the idea of ​​taking care of someone so you prefigure their death.

The album also presents “Men in Bars”, a collaboration between Elle and Jeff Bridges, inspired by “Ruby Don Take Your Love To Town” by Kenny Rogers “and” Henry Lee “by Nick Cave, which includes PJ Harvey. Zauner had considered a man and a woman singing from different angles and wanted specifically a man who had a “lower register and a lot of character” in his voice.

“The first name that happened (Blake and I) was both really excited by the fact that he was so unexpected and that the character was very good was Jeff Bridges,” she recalls.

But Zauner’s latest album is not the only creative project on which she works.

The singer-songwriter, who is half Korean, has passed the entire 2024 to live in Korea-an experience which will be the foundation of his next book, which will detail “my year living abroad in Korea and learning the language”.

The experience of life in Korea was deeply significant for Zauner.

“I cried for four days (after) leaving Korea,” she recalls. “I really loved the friends I made. I lived such a slow life compared to the one I live when I am on the cycle (the album). ”

The news of her book comes in the middle of an update that the cinematic adaptation of Cry in H Martwhich was to be led by Will Sharpe, is “on break” after saying Ssense Earlier this year, she has been working on the script for a year.

However, she considered who could portray it on the screen. His “dream person” would have been Back to Seoul Star Ji-Min Park. “I thought she was so incredible in this film,” said Zauner. “But she is French, so I don’t know if it would have worked for this film.”

What looked like – and remains – the most natural for Zauner, is the “discovery” of an unknown half Korean actress who had an inherent “magnetism and intensity” that would launch her career. “We needed to find someone like that,” she explains.

But for the moment, Zauner tries to stay present, focusing on the challenges of bringing it For melancholy brunettes (and sad women), to life, which is “a very involved disc” with “Hard Songs to Play”, and writing her next book that she owes to her publisher.

“This is the main thing right now,” she says, “and I’m trying not to think too far beyond that.”