Japanese Breakfast is the cover star of DIY’s March 2025 issue! 

Let’s be honest, there’s no way you can call an album ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)’ and not go all in, so, naturally, that’s exactly what Japanese Breakfast has done with her profound new album. As we welcome her to the DIY cover for the first time, Michelle Zauner tells us how she picked up the pieces after the huge success of both her 2021 album ‘Jubilee’, and her New York Times best-seller Crying In H Mart, while giving us an insight into the sense of contended sadness that helped to shape her new record.

”In a way, melancholy is my innate form,” she shares in our cover feature, discussing the seismic impact her mother’s death has had on her work. “I don’t think my grief will ever be over, but in some ways, it feels like it’s come full circle. I’ve allowed myself to feel happiness, and I’ve allowed myself now to just be sad about other stuff. Especially being someone in her mid-30s, sadness is not what it used to be. It’s not the sort of intense heartbreak, or jealousy, or longing; it is this kind of pensive melancholy about time passing.”

Life is all about balance, though, and elsewhere in our March 2025 issue we dial up the fun, digging into the fiery debut album from Hastings trio HotWax and getting the lowdown on SASAMI’s new incarnation as a bona fide Main Pop Girl. Elsewhere, we go on a road trip to Goldenhammer with Divorce in celebration of their debut; get a little existential with Perfume Genius as he approaches his seventh album ‘Glory’; and dust off our cowboy boots to mark the arrival of our fave new country duo, Julien Baker & TORRES. 

Over in our new music-centric Neu section, South London stalwart Sam Akpro gives us an insight into his atmospheric debut album ‘Evenfall’, while our introducing chats with bright young things Welly and Esme Emerson prove that the future of indie-pop is in safe hands indeed. Plus, we also catch up with certified DIY fave™ Matt Maltese for our latest In Deep profile, celebrate BRITs Week in style with Rachel Chinouriri’s recent War Child show, and give you the DIY verdict on the new records from Greentea Peng, The Horrors, clipping. and many more. 

To dive into all of that and more, click the button below to grab a print copy of our March 2025 issue, order via our online shop, or check out the digital edition below. Happy reading!