AAPI Month Featured Artist: Japanese Breakfast

  • May 5, 2025
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May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month and we are digging into music made by some incredible artists. Today we feature Japanese Breakfast.

Japanese Breakfast is the experimental project led by Koren-American musician, director and author Michelle Zauner. Taking a break from her band Little Big League, she debuted in 2013 with the melodically lo-fi cassette release June. Along with further work with Little Big League, she has continued to expand her sonic palette, weaving in atmospheric synths, electric guitars, and electronics on 2016's Psychopomp and 2017's Soft Sounds from Another Planet. In 2021, Zauner hit number two on the New York Times nonfiction best-seller list with her memoir, Crying in H Mart, which found her exploring her Korean heritage in the wake of her mother's death from cancer. On the heels of her memoir, Japanese Breakfast released a companion album, Jubilee, which earned her Grammy nominations for Best Alternative Album and Best New Artist.

Following tours with Florence and the Machine and the National, Zauner then spent much of 2024 living in Seoul, South Korea, where she studied Korean at Sogang University's Korean Language Education Center. She also began work on new material. In January 2025, Japanese Breakfast returned with the fourth album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women).

Japanese Breakfast is playing the Twilight Concert Series with Ginger Root and local opener Tomper at The Gallivan Center on Friday, September 5. 

Let's celebrate the musical and artistic contributions of Asian and Pacific Islanders artists who enrich the lives of music fans around the world.

And follow along with the @KRCLradio AAPI Playlist on Spotify which includes music from Utah's own The Jets to Kilby Block Party artists Toro y Moi and Jay Som.


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