There’s a hush before the lights shift tonight at the Sydney Opera House. Then Michelle Zauner appears — radiant, composed, completely in her element. As Japanese Breakfast, her presence feels at once celestial and grounded, like she’s offering up the weight of memory wrapped in melody.
Zauner’s journey is one marked by reinvention and resilience. Before Japanese Breakfast, she cut her teeth fronting the Philadelphia emo outfit Little Big League, releasing two albums — These Are Good People (2013) and Tropical Jinx (2014). But it was through her solo project that she began to process deeper wounds. Her first two Japanese Breakfast albums, Psychopomp and Soft Sounds from Another Planet, are woven together by the feelings felt before and after the death of her mother — grief unfolding in real time, soundtracked by lo-fi textures and ambient pop. In 2021, she released Jubilee, a record that turned toward brightness without denying the ache. This year, her next chapter arrived: For Melancholy Brunettes (and Sad Women), her fourth studio album, brimming with new textures and emotional gravity.
Born in Seoul and raised in Oregon, she first won hearts with her shimmering indie-pop — but it was Crying in H Mart, her unflinching memoir about grief, identity and the loss of her mother, that cemented her as one of this generation’s most fearless and emotionally articulate artists. In the book, H Mart becomes more than a Korean supermarket — it’s a shrine of small rituals, a place where mourning and memory live side by side in jars of gochujang and the scent of sliced fruit.
Zauner speaks softly, smiles often, and radiates the kind of confidence that comes not from spectacle, but from survival. There’s a glow to everything and the crowd leans forward, held delicately in her orbit.
She’s dressed tonight in a soft, lacy ensemble — all ethereal ribbons and vintage sweetness. But by the third song, that illusion unravels fast: Zauner shreds her guitar like a rock goddess. It’s a delicious contrast, like an angel knocking over a stack of amps.
I must address the giant mollusc in the room: the clam — Japanese Breakfast’s iconic stage prop, equal parts dreamscape and meme — is sadly absent tonight. Probably seized by Australian Border Force. But never fear: Zauner reassures us her trusty lantern has made the trip, glowing softly beside her like a relic from some mythic side quest.
This is a performance that feels like a bridge between worlds: past and future, Seoul and Oregon, grief and joy. The audience doesn’t dance so much as sway, caught in the lilt of emotion and sound. And through it all, Zauner remains luminous — a storyteller, a healer, and an artist standing tall in her own mythology.
Images Deb Pelser
No giant clamshell, no waves, nooooooooooooooooooo Was the violinist with the band?