Last week Paste met up with Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast, whose right arm sported fresh stains of obsidian-black ink. The current Philadelphia resident had visited her childhood home of Eugene, Oregon, two days previous, marking the event with a stop at her local tattoo parlor. Her new additions include an elegant river-side crane sequence in addition to retro gaming icons PaRappa the Rapper and adorable dragon duo of Bubble Bobble. (An earlier effort features a collage of faces from manga horror icon Junji Ito.) It’s an intriguing mix of the natural, profound, quirky and playful—a description that also appropriately fits around Sauner’s two electric records.
This year’s sophomore effort, Soft Sounds From Another Planet, spaces out the cute, whip-smart beats of earlier works like “Everybody Wants to Love You.” Opener “Diving Woman” glides along a reverb-laced riff as Sauner croons in tandem with synth swells and psychedelic guitar squelches, and single “Road Head” takes a similar approach with vocals that ascend skyward in a blissed-out chorus.
We saw these cuts and more live at Portland club,Holocene, where Sauner also showed off some badass glow-in-dark sneakers. Check out the photos in the gallery above.
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Japanese Breakfast Soundcheck at Holocene, Portland, OR, 9/25/2017
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Japanese Breakfast Soundcheck at Holocene, Portland, OR, 9/25/2017
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Japanese Breakfast Soundcheck at Holocene, Portland, OR, 9/25/2017
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Japanese Breakfast Soundcheck at Holocene, Portland, OR, 9/25/2017
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Japanese Breakfast Soundcheck at Holocene, Portland, OR, 9/25/2017
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Japanese Breakfast Soundcheck at Holocene, Portland, OR, 9/25/2017
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Japanese Breakfast Soundcheck at Holocene, Portland, OR, 9/25/2017
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Japanese Breakfast Soundcheck at Holocene, Portland, OR, 9/25/2017
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Japanese Breakfast Soundcheck at Holocene, Portland, OR, 9/25/2017
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Japanese Breakfast Soundcheck at Holocene, Portland, OR, 9/25/2017