The Japanese House

The Japanese House's second studio album In the End It Always Does come exclusively pressed to colour-in-colour LP, limited to 1,000 copies and hand-numbered to order.

Featuring recent single ‘Boyhood’, much of the album lives in the contradictory: beginnings and endings, obsession and mundanity, falling in love and falling apart.

Another standout is ‘Sad to Breathe’, an upbeat sounding heartbreaker co-produced by TJH’s Amber Bain with The 1975’s George Daniel and Chloe Kraemer accompanied by a beautiful live alternate version of the track directed by Sheila Johansson which sees Amber and her extended live band strip the track back to its bare bones.

“I wrote Sad To Breathe some time ago, it’s one of the oldest songs on the record.” tells Amber. “It was very different back then; it’s gone from being solely electronic to what it is now, mostly live/ acoustic instrumentation. 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.”

Four years after her widely celebrated debut Good at Falling, this album sees Bain lean even further into the pop realm–with help from Matty Healy and George Daniel from The 1975, Katie Gavin from Muna and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon among others. Bain credits Gavin especially with injecting her with creative energy and inspiration throughout. The album also sees Bain work alongside producer and engineer Chloe Kraemer (Rex Orange County, Lava La Rue, Glass Animals), an experience she describes as “life changing” due to the unspoken, shared understanding between marginalised genders in a creative space.

“I’d never worked with a woman or queer person [in that way] before,” Bain says. “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.”

Please note that Blood Records is a pre-ordering platform and this record is due for release on June 30th 2023. All images for illustrative purposes.