Rachael Yamagata

A few rounds of heartbreak … a broken wrist … eight stitches … a blown-out eardrum … and label realignment.

It wasn’t easy getting here for Rachael Yamagata. Three years after she began to appear on the public’s radar with her self-titled debut EP and full-length album Happenstance, Rachael will release Elephants…Teeth Sinking Into Heart, a single record in two parts, on October 7th, 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. 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.”

The nine tracks on Elephants are darker and more vulnerable than the five gritty, defiant rock songs on Teeth Sinking Into Heart. 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.”

Of the two CDs’ 15 tracks, 12 were produced by the Nebraska-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Mike Mogis, known for his work with Bright Eyes and Rilo Kiley. Two tracks, “What If I Leave” and “Horizon,” were produced by John Alagia (John Mayer, Dave Matthews Band), who also produced Happenstance.

“Elephants” opens the first part; she ran down a mountain in Woodstock and, by the time she ran back up, the song was written. “I don’t really know where it came from,” she says. “When I went back and reviewed the lyrics, they said so much more than I could have wished for.

Teeth Sinking Into Heart’s up-tempo grittiness is the answer to that. “Sidedish Friend” takes on the perils of being someone’s part-time lover, while “Pause The Tragic Ending,” is about “a vampire who knew me so well, it almost drew blood from me,” Yamagata says. “I could probably name every album Pause The Tragic Ending.” The second part closes with “Don’t” — a calling-out and warning, but tongue-in-cheek at the same time. Again, an epilogue to lost love, but this time from someone who knows what she wants, who acknowledges her responsibility in all that’s happened, and who will go on.