Japanese Breakfast has released the first of the two singles, “Essentially.” The track, is the first song Japanese Breakfast has released since her 2017 release, Soft Sounds From Another Planet. Fans can see her perform “Essentially” at W Taipei on May 25th. The music video for “Essentially” was partially filmed at W Philadelphia, slated to open in 2020.

“I was originally going to record a different song but decided to write something on the fly once I arrived in Bali,” said Zauner. “I like the challenge of writing and arranging quickly and intuitively sometimes, and I had just bought a native instruments machine and wanted to explore a lot of the sample libraries it came with and work on the synths that were at the studio. It was a very idyllic place to work,” Zauner said of the W Sound Suite at W Bali. “I usually record in cold studios, so Bali was a pretty glamorous change. I felt so lucky the day I arrived just walking around the hotel.”

Japanese Breakfast AKA: Michelle Zauner, wears many hats: video game composer, music video director, and author. Zauner surprised fans, last year, when she revealed “Glider” in the E3 announcement trailer for the new adventure video game Sable. Drawing from her years of songwriting experience while making new explorations into creating ambient and experimental music, she composed the entire soundtrack for the highly-anticipated indie game, which is due out early 2020. Zauner is also well underway making a name for herself as a sought-after director, working with longtime collaborator Adam Kolodny to craft music videos for other artists such as Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst, Jay Som and Charly Bliss. Between tours, studio sessions, and video shoots, Zauner has long been working on a memoir of her early childhood, time spent between the U.S. and South Korea, and the split heritage that has shaped so much of her life. An excerpt from that book, “Crying in H-Mart,” was published in The New Yorker at the end of 2018. The full book, also titled Crying in H-Mart, will be released via Knopf. With this track release, Zauner adds yet another exciting update to her ever-growing resume of creative projects as the last W Records artist to join the label in its debut year.

All W Hotels proceeds from the streaming of both Japanese Breakfast tracks will go to a charity of her choosing, which will be announced soon.