The Japanese House has readied her second studio album, In the End It Always Does, out June 30th via Dirty Hit. As a preview, Amber Bain has shared a new look at the record, “Sad to Breathe.”
Just as previous single “Boyhood” recalled the complex experience of growing up queer, In the End It Always Does was inspired by Bain’s current relationship to her identity, and the relationships she’s forged and lost. “[These two people] were together for six years and I met them and then we all fell in love at the same time — and then one of them left,” she recalls. “It was a ridiculously exciting start to a relationship. It was this high… And then suddenly I’m in this really domestic thing, and it’s not like there was other stuff going on — it was lockdown.”
The Japanese House worked with producer Chloe Kraemer for her second album, an experience she describes as “life changing.” “I’d never worked with a woman or queer person [in that way] before,” Bain said. “It’s nice to have someone who completely understands your standpoint and shared experience. Also, I say ‘she’ in every song… so it’s important that someone understands that.”
The opening piano in new track “Sad to Breathe” signals a ballad, but the single quickly evolves into a sprightly chorus of synths as The Japanese House croons, “It’s sad to breathe when you’re not there.” In a statement, Bain revealed that the track is “one of the oldest songs on the record.”
“It was very different back then; it’s gone from being solely electronic to what it is now, mostly live/ acoustic instrumentation,” The Japanese House continued. “It’s about that desperate feeling when someone leaves you and the disbelief that they could. It’s funny you could have those kind of insane dramatic thoughts, that feel so real at the time, but can by some miracle look back in fondness to your entire life being ruined. It all circles back around.” Listen to “Sad to Breathe” below.
Pre-orders for In the End It Always Does are ongoing, and the album’s artwork and tracklist are available to view below. The LP follows The Japanese House’s 2019 debut, Good at Falling, and her 2020 EP Chewing Cotton Wool.
In the End It Always Does Artwork:
In the End It Always Does Tracklist:
01. Spot Dog
02. Touching Yourself
03. Sad to Breathe
04. Over There
05. Morning Pages
06. Boyhood
07. Indexical reminder of a morning well spent
08. Friends
09. Sunshine Baby
10. Baby goes again
11. You always get what you want
12. One for sorrow, two for Joni Jones
