Chewing Cotton Wool is is the first release since last year’s critically acclaimed album, Good At Falling
BY SOPHIE GRIFFITHS
Our playlists have been lacking some queer tunes so far this month, so we’re pretty pleased with the latest release from The Japanese House, blessing us with two unreleased songs.
Chewing Cotton Wool is the first full body of work from The Japanese House (aka Amber Bain) since her critically acclaimed debut album Good At Falling, released in 2019.
The new EP is once again produced by Amber and BJ Burton (Bon Iver, Francis & The Lights, Low & Banks) and features previously released singles Chewing Cotton Wool and Something Has To Change.
A real highlight of the EP is the new single Dionne (feat. Justin Vernon) which blends Amber’s electronic pop perfectly with Justin’s experimental style.
Chewing Cotton Wool also followed four previous EPs, praised for their “experimental and impressive” sound, adored by both critics and fans.
— The Japanese House (@Japanesehouse) August 12, 2020
Taking to Twitter, The Japanese House wrote: “Excited to finally release Dionne ft Justin Vernon and Sharing Beds, the remaining songs on the Chewing Cotton Wool EP. These songs for me punctuate the stages of coming out of a new relationship and entering into a new phase.”
“The artwork for this EP is a self portrait I took a few weeks ago. I hate getting my photo taken for a number of reasons, one of them being that I’ve always been self conscious about my appearance/body. So I found it interesting that when I was the photographer, I almost immediately wanted to take my clothes off and it felt very natural to do so.”
“This image I found particularly interesting as it made me think about my own gender, which falls probably towards the middle of the spectrum…somewhere. This led me to think about how queer bodies are interpreted/censored. I wondered how ‘masculine’ a body has to appear in order for a nipple to allowed to be show. How you feel or identify is not taken into account if your body is read as female.”
Check out the music video for the latest single Dionne below.
