Michelle Zauner turns to melancholy in her new album

“All of my ghosts are real, all of my ghosts are my home,” Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast sings in her singular way — sweetness laced with sorrow. Four years ago, the release of her Grammy-nominated album “Jubilee” dovetailed with her bestselling memoir “Crying in H Mart” — chronicling her love of Korean food and loss of her mother — to produce a season of success. Then came a film adaptation of her memoir, for which she wrote the screenplay. With the Hollywood strikes, though, it came to a grinding halt (and later a full stop, when actor and director Will Sharpe left the project). In the aftermath, Zauner recorded new tracks. She sidestepped the spotlight by moving to Seoul — where she immersed herself in Korean language and culture — the subject of her upcoming second book. Zauner talked to The Associated Press about her fourth studio album, “For Melancholy Brunettes (and Sad Women).” Out Friday, it’s that rare thing: a cerebral yet deeply felt album from an artist with just enough commercial success to secure resources for her still-quite-indie vision.

The album cover looks like a very sumptuous painting. It’s very memento mori with the skull and flowers — and then there’s oysters and a tray of bloody guts. Where did the idea come from?

I really loved the idea of being on the album cover, but not showing my face. I was feeling pretty introverted after the years that followed “Jubilee.” It was a really natural desire to just focus more on the work and less on me as a figure. I had noticed this kind of trope in many paintings of women collapsed over tables, overcome with melancholy. It looks like I’m this collapsed, spoiled prince just with a table full of excess, and still miserable. I dressed the table with little Easter eggs from the album — almost like a still life where every object has some kind of meaning. There is a bowl of guts that is a line from “Here is Someone,” and there’s milky broth and oysters, which are lines on “Orlando in Love.” There’s flowers in a vase, which I mention in “Winter in LA.”

Melancholy is a motif throughout the tracks. It feels like a different flavour or colour of grief than your earlier work. How would you describe the kind of sadness you wanted to capture?

At this time in my life and the way that I think about melancholy, it’s very intertwined with time and the passage of it. And this desire to get ahead of it and to keep it at bay — and the sort of melancholic reality that it’s forever passing. I think of it not so much as like a violent sadness or longing or heartbreak, but kind of this pensive, anticipatory grief about the passage of time. It evokes a specific kind of feeling of being sort of on edge. Or, like, a taut feeling. Most of that dissonance, I think, comes from the chord changes or the progressions. I originally wanted to make a creepy album, and those sorts of changes felt really essential to achieving that kind of eerie sound.

You recorded this album, shelved it, went to Korea for a year, came back to New York and are now releasing it. Why did you shelve it for a period of time and what’s it like now listening back to the recordings?

My last record was also shelved for a year because of COVID, so I’m honestly used to that process now. I’ve actually found that I really love my records even more with time away from them. There’s so much that goes into preparing for an album to come out, from the visuals to mixing and mastering to prepping for the tour that, honestly, that kind of separation is really nice.

I’m not someone that’s super precious. I have a very clear idea of what I want, and I am someone that is good at knowing when to finish.

Associated Press