Monday 4/12: Japanese Breakfast—"Posing in Bondage"
Today, we share our thoughts on the latest single from the indie-pop band Japanese Breakfast.
Welcome to Endless Scroll, the brainchild of Eli Enis (he/him), Eric Bennett (they/them), Michael Brooks (he/him) and Miranda Reinert (she/her). Since Feb. 2019, we’ve been a weekly podcast about music, the internet, and where those two things intersect. On Substack, we’re also a M-F newsletter about songs. Our format is simple: a link to a song and a short take from each of us about what we think of it. Each day of the week has a corresponding genre: Monday is indie, Tuesday is punk, Wednesday is hip-hop, Thursday is pop, and Friday is misc. Three days of the week are free but you can get access to all five weekly posts by subscribing for $5/month via Substack or $2/month via our Patreon.
Today, we share our thoughts on the latest single from the indie-pop band Japanese Breakfast.
Japanese Breakfast—"Posing in Bondage"
Eric Bennett:
Michelle Zauner has said that the next Japanese Breakfast record, Jubilee, is a record about joy. While that theme might have come through more clearly on the previous single, “Be Sweet,” it’s not entirely lost in “Posing in Bondage.” The track was first released as part of a Polyvinyl singles series in 2017 and has been fully transformed and updated since then. Previously quite lo-fi, the song now carries the cold, luminescent grandeur found across Soft Sounds from Another Planet. The song is not necessarily one I am head over heels in love with, but it's an acceptably pleasant offering. The second single choice often falls into this trap I feel, acting as a showcase for something more subtle. Still, I find myself wanting more from it. I see myself wishing it were all-encompassing, and it makes me think about the song's subject - an abject and unsettling feeling of isolation. Maybe the lack of overpowering satisfaction it leaves is a purposeful choice. Maybe it’s trying to make you feel that discomfort. If so, it has overwhelmingly succeeded.
Eli Enis:
Wooooww, really??? Damn, fair enough, Eric! I think this is a phenomenal song and quite possibly my favorite on the whole album (let’s not front, we’ve both heard it in full many times). Something I love about the Japanese Breakfast project is the variety of songs Michelle Zauner includes on a given album (Soft Sounds was very hard to pin down in that sense), but the style that I hoped she would explore further on Jubilee was the “Machinist”-style songs—dark, heavily electronic, and texturally visceral. This checks all of those boxes for me.
The emotional weight of her vocal delivery in the first half stops me in my tracks, and then when she delivers the line, “When the world divides into two people / those who have felt pain / and those who have yet to,” I’m broken. That’s the best line I’ve heard all year. And then the second half is this beautiful crescendo with wailing reverse-reverb guitar streaks, a thumping techno bass, a tickling xylophone lead, and her pitched-up vocals shooting off in the background like stray fireworks. I think it’s one of the most momentous climaxes she’s ever written and by far the best-produced track I’ve heard from her. Fucking love it. But to each their own!