Michelle Zauner aka Japanese Breakfast recently made her emphatic return with “Be Sweet”, the lead single from forthcoming album Jubilee. Today she delivers the follow up, “Posing in Bondage”, revealing:
“‘Posing in Bondage’ is a ballad about loneliness and longing, a song about two people who want so badly to connect but are never quite able to do so. No place felt lonelier than an empty grocery at 1 AM.”
Practically the inverse of the radiant joy of “Be Sweet”, “Posing in Bondage” is a glacial and stately ballad that draws us right into the quiet drama of Zauner’s characters, particularly the narrator who is “done up and drunk.” Using a crisp array of synths and electronic drums, we feel the coldness of the distance between the singer and her desires, in the airy chorus she barely needs to sing more than single words to transmit the forlornness: “Closeness / proximity / I needed / bondage.” A song that is subtly maximalist in its construction, and not so subtle in its emotional magnitude, “Posing in Bondage” is another powerful success for Japanese Breakfast.
Watch the video for “Posing in Bondage” below, or listen on streaming platforms.
Japanese Breakfast’s new album Jubilee comes out on June 4 via Dead Oceans (pre-order/save). You can find her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
She’s also got these tour dates ahead:
