For those unaware, a jazz bassist by trade and a songwriter at heart, the Australian-born, Brooklyn-based artist leads Georgia Weber and the Sleeved Hearts with warmth, wit, and a fierce emotional clarity. Big in Japan, her band’s long-awaited new EP, is a tender, thematically rich collection inspired by Japanese traditions and folk tales – a whimsical and wonder-filled meditation on grief, love, memory, and the art of holding things sacred, even after they’ve cracked.

At once soft-spoken and full-bodied, these songs explore what it means to break and to heal, to lose and to carry, to leave and to find your way back changed. They’re bittersweet and poignant, but still hopeful and beautiful – stories that shimmer in their sadness, and shine in their humanity.

Released September 19th 2025, Big in Japan is Georgia Weber and the Sleeved Hearts’ first release since their 2022 covers album No Standards, and a stirring return that blends Weber’s jazz foundation with indie folk storytelling and lyrical intimacy.

Years in the making, the EP is as much a personal reflection as it is a cross-cultural homage, uniting Weber with her longtime bandmates Kenji Herbert (Arooj Aftab, Yuhan Su) on guitar and Nathan Ellman-Bell (Brass Against, Cat Torren Band) on drums – each of whom brings a wealth of talent and improvisational flair to the recordings.

The EP’s six tracks were recorded over several years at Weber’s own Wildwood Recording Studio in Brooklyn, in between touring schedules and transatlantic flights. Herbert, who now lives in Vienna, flew in to contribute parts inspired by his own Japanese heritage – including the EP’s bookending performances.

From start to finish, Big in Japan unfolds with grace and gusto: A songwriter rediscovering her voice through the voices and stories of others, letting each song bloom with emotional depth, whimsy, and spontaneity.

1. Jo
2. Kintsugi
3. Wind Telephone
4. Urashima Taro Intro
5. Urashima Taro
6. Koinbori

Engineered, mixed and produced by Sonny Ratcliff at Wildwood Recording Studio and Mastered by Matthew Agogolia at The Ranch Mastering, the trio’s remarkable new collaborative recording opens on the hauntingly ethereal Jo and then they bring us the breathy, rhythmically-enthralling Kintsugi, the furtively expressive, yet emotively focused Wind Telephone, and then we are graced with the expressively impassioned Urashima Taro Intro, which is followed by the melodiously crafted, ambiently-stoic, yet quietly pop-adjacent full track, the set coming to an all-too-soon close on the creatively sculpted, Asian-hued mysticisms within Koinbori.