Japanese Breakfast Releases Music Video For New Album’s Lead Single “Orlando In Love”.

Japanese Breakfast/Photo Credit: Pak Bae

Last week, Japanese Breakfast announced her highly anticipated fourth album, For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), due 21 March on Dead Oceans. Today, she shares the video for lead single ‘Orlando in Love’. The video was directed by Michelle Zauner herself with cinematography by Peter Ash Lee.

Zauner shares: “‘Orlando in Love’ is made up of a hodgepodge of odd references. The title comes from an epic poem by Matteo Maria Boiardo called Orlando Innamorato, which ends abruptly at 68.5 cantos because Italy was invaded by French troops, and that’s as far as he got before he had to flee. I fell in love with the title and envisioned a sort of whimsical, foolish male protagonist who lives by the sea in a Winneabeago RV and is seduced by a siren. After writing it, it felt like the perfect thesis statement for an album that is largely about people, often men, who find themselves seduced by temptation and are duly punished for it. 

“Somewhere along the way I came across Eduard von Grützner’s painting ‘The Connoisseur’ and I started to picture Orlando as a daydreaming friar who can’t help but tipple of the Abbey’s brews. He dreams of his siren and despite the dream’s foreboding imagery, decides he must run and find her. The siren is played by my dear friend Jungle, whom I spent most of my time with in Korea this year. The friars are played by Missy Dabice from Mannequin Pussy, making her return to the Jbrekkie Cinecanon, and Molly Germer. We filmed half of the video in Korea with Peter Ash Lee, who shot the cover of Jubilee, and half of it at my alma mater, Bryn Mawr College, with my longtime collaborator and DP, Adam Kolodny.”

For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) is out 21 March via Dead Oceans.