Japanese Breakfast have dropped a surprise EP as part of Spotify and the famed recording studio’s Live at Electric Lady series. The eight-song set includes a cover of Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So,” a fitting choice as Weezer originally recorded the track at Electric Lady Studios for their self-titled 1994 debut LP, also dubbed the Blue Album.
“I played a very sloppy basement cover of ‘Say It Ain’t So’ once with my band in college, so it was fun to revisit it from the opposite angle, stripped down with a string quartet,” Michelle Zauner said in a statement. “[Bandmate] Craig Hendrix did the arrangement and Quartet 121 performed the hell out of it.”
The EP also includes live versions of songs from 2021’s Jubilee, including “Be Sweet,” “Savage Good Boy” and “Kokomo, IN.” It also features “Ballad 0” from Zauner’s side project Bumper’s and “Lindsey” from the musician’s former band Little Big League.
“Recording at Electric Lady was truly the perfect experience. 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,” Zauner said. “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.”