In addition to Jon Batiste, Patti Smith, Natalie Bergman, and Faye Webster, Japanese Breakfast was accompanied by the Quartet 121 string section for their Electric Lady set. The band performed “Be Sweet,” and “Savage Good Boy,” and included two songs from their 2021 Jubilee, “Tactics” and “Kokomo, IN.” The EP also features two tracks from band leader Michelle Zauner’s side project, Bumper’s “Ballad 0” and her prior band, Little Big League’s “Lindsey.”

“Recording at Electric Lady was truly the perfect experience,” Japanese Breakfast said in a statement. “The longer I’ve worked as a recording artist, the more I’ve realized it’s the simple, stripped down songs that are the hardest to get right. Having the opportunity to revisit the core catalog of my songwriting in a room with so much history, surrounded by engineers and gear of the highest caliber, it was just a dream come true.”

The set also saw Japanese Breakfast cover Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So,” a song originally recorded at the studio back in 1993.

Zauner’s wispy vocals are anchored in the strings surrounding her, reinventing the guitar-steered, alt-rock “Say It Ain’t So” into a dreamy orchestral serenade.

“I played a very sloppy basement cover of ‘Say It Ain’t So’ once with my band in college, she continued. “So it was fun to revisit it from the opposite angle, stripped down with a string quartet. Craig Hendrix did the arrangement and Quartet 121 performed the hell out of it.”

Japanese Breakfast – Live At Electric Lady EP Track List

Tactics
Lindsey
Ballad 0
Boyish
Be Sweet
Kokomo, IN
Savage Good Boy
Say It Ain’t So

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