As Michelle Zauner returns with news of her first new record in four years and her first promotional cycle as a bona fide star rather than up-and-comer – details on that available at literally every music news outlet – I’m going to go back – way back – to her early days. I thought I had been relatively early to the game, able to see her in a small club in early 2017 with Psychopomp a year old and just on the edge of breaking out of the underground, but these earlier recordings were completely unknown to me until, well, yesterday.
American Sound/Where Is My Great Big Feeling?, a cassette release that collected two 2014 EPs and includes songs that would appear on both Psychopomp and Soft Sounds From Another Planet in embryonic form, as well as others that would remain consigned to history. Where Is My Great Big Feeling? was written as part of a songwriting project for Song a Day for a Week (May 5 – 12), and only “Heft” would make it onto a proper release, albeit in dramatically different form. Zauner goes into more detail of what went into the project on the Bandcamp page writeup:
In the beginning I feel like the songs are more diary like. This happened to be the week I went up to NY so it was difficult to find time to write songs. Day 1 and 2 were the sort of impending doom songs. My mother was having a lot of doctors appointments and check ups with the suspicion something was up. Day 3 we found out my mother has a rare form of pancreatic cancer. It was very difficult to write and record these songs after that and that is probably why day 5 and 6 get so silly. I’m hesitant to post this I guess, but I also feel like the musicians I admire the most are those that just put stuff out there, no matter how revealing or hurtful. It’s been a difficult time for me and my family and doing projects like this really helps document and sort through these emotions. I also hope anyone else who lost or is struggling with a family member or friend with cancer can maybe find some comfort in these shitty lo fi songs.
Michelle Zauner, Japanese Breakfast
Where Is My Great Big Feeling? @ Bandcamp
I can’t find any such annotations around American Sound, which is much more fully-produced (a very relative statement) but as almost all of the songs were eventually released, they’re more considered compositions. It’s hard to think of the raw emotion of Psychopomp as being a more refined version of Zauner’s feelings on her mother’s passing, but these songs are even closer to the bone.
It’s going to be a big year for Japanese Breakfast; I in particular look forward to/hope to hell she’s finally able to play her first Toronto show in seven years, following two cancelled Jubilee shows. I got tickets for the Massey Hall show – let’s not ever speak of how much they cost.
