Japanese Breakfast Brings Tour to Baby’s All Right

Philly artist Michelle Zauner spent the Summer on tour with Mitski and Jay Som for the affectionately titled “Women Who Wok Tour.” Recently, she did another round of shows stateside with indie synthpop act Porches before heading out on a headlining European tour.

Opening the show was Jack Greenleaf’s hi-fi electronica project Sharpless, which once began as a full band has now become a duo centered around Greenleaf and singer Montana Elliot with a backing track performing the intricate arrangements. With a choreographed dance routine, the two played primarily from their debut record “The One I Wanted To Be” while interspersing some new material.

Brooklyn musician Emily Reo is a force of surrealistic nature, creating lush arrangements on keytar and vocoder. With Greenleaf on bass, she was also joined by Epoch Collective and Eskimeaux bandmate Felix Walworth on drums. Sonically, her compositions are slow burning and invoke a powerful experience that even in the most intimate settings feel cavernous. Lyrically, the themes in her music utilize iconography from nature to reference human concerns like mental health and surviving abuse. In a similar sense, it was fitting to include a synthpop rendition of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” into their set.

Launching right into “Everybody Wants to Love You” off of her LP “Psychopomp,” Michelle Zauner and bassist Craig Hendrix exchanged in a call and response of gender dynamics on the chorus. As her solo project, the outfit was formed in between Zauner’s work with Little Big League. Incorporating the track “Boyish” into her set, she also included a cover of The Cranberries “Dreams” the quintessential track for anyone’s cross country tour playlist. Originally beginning as a three piece with Kat Casale (drummer for Mitski on the Bury Me at Make Out Creek tour) the band has added a fourth

Sharpless

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