Japanese Breakfast (née Michelle Zauner) just released her excellent sophomore album, Soft Sounds From Another Planet, back in July via Dead Oceans. Now, she has returned with a music video for the track “The Body is a Blade.”

Zauner directed the clip herself, as is the case with many of her other music videos as well, with the help of cinematographer Adam Kolodny. For this one, she aims straight at the heart of nostalgia and hits the bullseye: Vintage-tinged shots of Zauner are laced with old family photos of herself and her parents, creating a stunningly poignant clip. She visits the same places depicted in the photos, juxtaposing the past with the present.

The imagery is particularly poignant because, as Michelle explains in a statement, the release of the video coincides with the day of her mother’s passing, three years ago.

Previously she had shared a video for the album’s first single, “Machinist,” the audio for the lush ballad “Boyish,” and the video for “Road Head.” Ever the forward thinker, she also released a RPG browser video game entitled “Japanese Breakquest.” Zauner also recently directed the video for Jay Som’s “The Bus Song,” and is currently on tour with the singer-songwriter.

The album is the follow-up to 2016’s well-received debut, Psychopomp. Check out the tour flyer with Jay Som, the full statement from Zauner about the music video, and the music video for “The Body is a Blade” itself.

“Today marks the day my mom has been gone for three years. Since then everything I have created has been made in her memory, every success feels a part of her doing.

Body is a Blade is a song about letting your body take over when mentally you can longer be present. It’s about packing up your childhood home, seeing its shell staged by real estate brokers for strangers to buy without knowing that room is the one she died in, giving away her old clothes. It’s a mantra to not let the pain you endure transform you into an unkind person. It’s a reminder that the world did not target you personally, that people survive tragedies everyday.

I’ve thrown myself into my work since I lost my mother because it’s all I have to stay sane and what she would have wanted. Sometimes busyness feels like a cocoon. Like the hours I spent animating these old photos frame by frame. I know many of you have lost loved ones too and I hope this helps you somehow.❤️

Thank you to my cinematographer Adam Kolodny. This is our seventh video together and I’d never have trusted anyone else with something so intimate and personal to me. Thank you for shooting this beautiful 16mm & 35mm and spending way too long collaging and animating this mixed media”