In The End It Always Does

Amber Bain—the East London-based singer-songwriter who goes by The Japanese House—took her time with her second album (four years, to be precise, passed between her 2019 debut Good at Falling and the arrival of In the End It Always Does). “It was this weird, really expansive time where I was like, ‘I can’t think of anything to say,’” Bain tells Apple Music. “I’d write the odd song here and there, but I’d moved out of London, gone to Margate and was living this slowed-down version of life, both because of lockdown and because I was out of the city.” Then, Bain broke up with her girlfriend and moved back to the capital—events which finally provided the catalyst for her second record. “It felt like my life was kind of restarting simultaneously with the ending [of the relationship],” she says. “It’s a very inspiring place to be, when you’re on the edge. It’s really easy to engage with ideas and your core emotions and wants when you’re not in a very stable place.” In the End It Always Does is an album—as its cover art suggests—about circularity (it’s not lost on Bain that its predecessor was also about a break-up), how distance can grow to become an uncrossable void in a relationship, and endings, whether that’s a split or the gradual fade of the pain you feel after one, something Bain found herself just as devastated by. All of which is set against “classic sounds: really nice guitars, really nice strings, really nice pianos” and, often, an embrace of Bain’s poppier side. Stepping away from her computer, she says, was creatively liberating. As was the cast of people she surrounded herself with, including long-term friend and collaborator George Daniel of The 1975, and producer Chloe Kraemer (who’s worked with Rina Sawayama, LAVA LA RUE and more). “Working with a queer woman really opened up the emotion,” says Bain of working with Kraemer. “The conversations Chloe and I had during this record I wouldn’t have had with anyone else, because no one really gets it the sam