Fresh off Coachella gig, Japanese Breakfast hits LR

"It's not a bad way to spend a week."

That's what Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast says when asked about the days she and her bandmates spent in California between playing sets at the mammoth, two-weekend-spanning Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

Japanese Breakfast was headed to San Luis Obispo for a show with touring mates and fellow Coachella performers Snail Mail. The bands were working in a couple of California dates after performing at the first weekend of Coachella. There was another show and then a day off before making their way back to the desert at Indio, Calif., for the festival's second weekend.

After all that California dreaming is over, Zauner and Co. are making their way east and play Friday at Stickyz Rock 'n' Roll Chicken Shack in Little Rock.

"It was much better than I expected," the 29-year-old Zauner says of Coachella's first weekend. "I wasn't sure of how the crowd would be, but they were great. We were in a tent, so it was like a big show for us, but not like being on one of the main stages."

It's not inconceivable to think that Japanese Breakfast will be playing one of those larger outdoor stages someday.

Zauner, who had been in the emo band Little Big League, wrote the songs on Psychopomp, Japanese Breakfast's 2016 debut, as a way to sort through the grief following the death of her mother at 57 of a rare form of cancer. Zauner had moved back to Oregon to be with her parents after her mother was diagnosed.

A collection of cathartic, indie-leaning synth pop and rock, the album with her mother's photo on the cover was Zauner working through her loss and confusion. It attracted lots of positive attention among critics and new fans and was much better received than anything she did with Little Big League. She followed it up with last year's Soft Sounds From Another Planet.

"It started with a song I wrote called 'The Machinist,' about a woman who falls in love with a robot," Zauner says of the current album. "At first it was going to be a sort of science fiction concept album or musical, but that got too complicated."

Simpler may be better in this case. The record soars on waves of synths, dreamy pop arrangements and big guitars. The whole affair somehow manages to sound '80s retro -- check the sax solo on "Machinist" -- and thoroughly modern. "Boyish" finds Zauner contemplating a frustrating love affair from behind a lush wall of synthesizer; the title cut has an icy, Mazzy Starish, "Fade Into You" guitar line. The record opens with the video game-like wobble of "Diving Woman" in which Zauner sings, softly, "I want it all."

Helping her bring all these sounds to life on the road is a band that includes her former Little Big League bandmate Deven Craig, Soft Sounds producer Craig Hendrix and her husband, Peter Bradley.

Friday's show, Zauner says, will be the band's first time in Little Rock.

Weekend on 04/26/2018