Watch Japanese Breakfast’s Awesomely Cinematic Performance Of “Paprika” On Kimmel
We’re presumably nearing the end of the period where bands will send in videos of their late-night TV performances rather than playing in the studio. But if that stretch is ending, Japanese Breakfast are making it count. A few months ago, around the time they announced their new album Jubilee, Japanese Breakfast put on a pretty amazing Tonight Show performance, using the entirety of the empty Brooklyn venue National Sawdust. Last night, with the album already out there, they did something just as ambitious with their Jimmy Kimmel Live performance.
On last night’s show, guest host Wanda Sykes announced Japanese Breakfast as playing at Sellersville Theater in Pennsylvania. In that empty room, the band played the Jubilee track Paprika, and they made it a performance. Michelle Zauner dressed like she was about to hit up the Met Ball, and the rest of the band wore fancy clothes, too. The band was big: Violins, horns, two drummers. A smeary lens effect lent the entire performance a kind of dreamy unreality. And Zauner also carried a big mallet and periodically hit a gong. Everytime the gong crashed, the lighting would change.
Japanese Breakfast also sounded great doing all this, but you don’t need me to tell you that. Right now, with her bestselling memoir and its forthcoming film adaptation, Michelle Zauner is on her way to becoming a kind of cross-media figure. A performance like this one shows that she’s really going for it. Watch it below.
Jubilee is out now on Dead Oceans. Check out our feature on Japanese Breakfast here.