Anyone partial to a narrative arc that goes from struggle to tragedy to validation need look no further than Japanese Breakfast – an indie rock success story and literary sensation, currently on an extended victory lap around Europe. You might call them bounce-back specialists: they keep doing it. The five-strong touring band missed their Glastonbury slot a few days ago owing to travel delays from Luxembourg, but their chief creative, Michelle Zauner, is a sanguine and ebullient presence tonight. Encased in a shiny skirt and banging a large gong as the band strike up Paprika – a chamber-pop song about the contradictions of being a successful performer – she bounces sinuously around the stage. The song’s woozy marching-band feel is underlined by violin and saxophone. “I guess I’ll never get to Pilton,” Zauner quips.
Her star ascended slowly and painfully. After years trying to make it in bands, the musician moved back to Oregon in 2014 to be with her mother, who was dying of pancreatic cancer. That period of intensity, then mourning (she had also recently lost her aunt), gave birth to Zauner’s first two solo albums as Japanese Breakfast, Psychopomp (2016) – named for the mythological figures that guide the deceased on to the next life – and Soft Sounds from Another Planet (2017), more sonically escapist.
