Japanese Breakfast – Jubilee

From the moment she began writing her new album, Japanese Breakfast's Michelle Zauner knew she wanted to call it Julibee. After all, an anniversary is a celebration of the passage of time - a celebration to usher in the hope of a new era in brilliant technicolor. Zauner's first two albums were lauded for their exploration of angst: Psychopomp was made during her mother's cancer treatment, Soft Sounds From Another Planet took the grief of her mother's death and used it to explore the cosmos. Now, at the dawn of a new decade, Japanese Breakfast is ready to fight for happiness, an all-too-scarce resource in our seemingly crumbling world.

How does she do it? With a joyful noise. Jubilee bristles with the most expansive arrangements of Zauner's career. Each song unfolds a new aspect of her artistry.

In the years leading up to Jubilee, Zauner also took theory lessons and studied piano seriously for the first time to improve her range as a songwriter: "I never wanted to rest on any laurels. I wanted to push it as far as I could, bring in more people and push myself as a composer, producer and arranger."

Jubilee is an album about coming to terms with life and love in the pursuit of happiness, and how that process sometimes forces us to rise above ourselves. In Jubilee, Zauner barely fictionalizes her lyrics, instead pouring her own life into the universe of each song to tell real stories, allowing those universes to fill in the details in their turn. Joy, change, evolution - these things take real time and real effort. And Japanese Breakfast is here for that.