Since Psychopomp was released in America in March by Yellow K, it’s become one of the year’s most beloved indie-pop records, receiving plaudits from the likes of Pitchfork, NPR and FACT.
The record is acutely tactile and raw. It’s this skill that Michelle Zauner learned while playing in a number of bands but has honed for Japanese Breakfast. Perhaps it’s to do with the inherent connectivity that links all pop music together, or perhaps it’s the fact that the album is incredibly personal (it deals with her mother’s death, who is the woman in the album art work) and explores life’s inherent juxtapositions – life, death; love, pain; the present, the afterlife – while realizing that those things aren’t binary at all.
The Jungian term “psychopomp” would become so fundamental to exploring tangled ways of the world and beyond, that it became the title of the album.
Psychopomp: ‘the mediator between the conscious and the unconscious’, ‘a mythological guide to the afterlife who forgoes judgment on the life of its charge.’ The album is such a spiritual exploration that it becomes deeper and perhaps less fatalistic than what we’ve been taught about life and what it means to live.
“It’s been really overwhelming the amount of support, the people that have come up to me saying they’ve lost a parent, or how many mixed race girls that come up to me and feel so connected to what I do. Honestly that makes me feel like my work is worthwhile.”
Japanese Breakfast is currently on tour in the US with Mitski and Jay Som. On August 19th, Dead Oceans will release Psychopomp outside of Northern America which will coincide with Japanese Breakfast’s debut UK performances.