Invidious

Our fourth album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), is out now. Order/stream and find tour dates: japanesebreakfast.lnk.to/for-melancholy-brunettes-…

Over the course of promoting this new album I’ve often been asked to clarify the difference between melancholy and sadness. I think of melancholy as a kind of anticipatory grief, one that comes from an acknowledgment of the passage of time, from the recognition of mortality and finitude. In some way, too, I think it marks the artist’s condition, constantly observing through that lens. "Nothing thicker than a knife's blade separates happiness from melancholy," Virginia Woolfe writes. I wanted this album to capture the moments where that knife slips. When people want too much, when they cede to temptation, when they are seduced and punished.