Three years after she began to appear on the public’s radar with her self-titled debut EP and full-length album Happenstance, Rachael Yamagata will release A Record in Two Parts: Elephants…Teeth Sinking Into Heart through Warner Bros. Records on October 7, 2008.
“I didn’t set out to make a two part album,” Yamagata says. “We just followed the songs’ lyrical lead and built them up with textures and sounds that served the story. The beautiful ones were darker and worked with lush arrangements. We used the sounds of rain, tree branches falling on the roof — whatever kept the mood true to this haunted studio in the first stormy days of spring. The second part became more anthemic, like a reclaiming of personal power. There’s something raw about it. To me it sounds weathered, but not broken or cynical.”
Taken together, the two halves present a complete timeline of the emotions that revolve around complicated relationships and the accompanying fallout. “Elephants is much more intimate,” Yamagata says. “It’s about being willing to take a risk even if it’s not going to end up well. Teeth is like rediscovering your backbone after you’ve gone through the loss.
