{"id":4350,"date":"2011-11-13T23:36:38","date_gmt":"2011-11-14T06:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=4350"},"modified":"2011-11-28T15:21:40","modified_gmt":"2011-11-28T22:21:40","slug":"rachael-yamagata","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/11\/rachael-yamagata\/","title":{"rendered":"RACHAEL YAMAGATA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>RACHAEL YAMAGATA
\n<\/strong>How she found independence, a new sense of purpose and a banana-colored tent<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n

When Rachael Yamagata elected to record her latest album, Chesapeake<\/em>, at producer John Alagia\u2019s home on the Chesapeake Bay in Easton, Md., she knew there wouldn\u2019t be room enough for all the players and contributors. So she went to a camping equipment store where she discovered what she calls the \u201cDiva Tent.\u201d \u201cI found this big, banana-colored, yellow tent, and got some air mattresses and blankets,\u201d she says. \u201cI dumped them in this tent to have my own little hideaway.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tent seems to have had the intended stress-relieving effect, given the relative buoyancy of tone heard on Chesapeake<\/em>. Yamagata\u2019s previous album, 2008\u2019s fractured, two-disc Elephants \u2026 Teeth Sinking Into Heart <\/em>reflected the confusion and exhaustion she felt following her rise to fame with 2004\u2019s critically hailed Happenstance<\/em>. \u201cI had gone through this three-year roller-coaster ride of insanity,\u201d she recalls. \u201cIt was a very lonely experience, and showed me a grand spectrum of\u00a0human character.\u201d<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean Chesapeake<\/em> is all sweetness and light. Take \u201cStarlight,\u201d a deeply arresting vibe song that would sound right at home in European dance clubs. A spoken verse (\u201cI couldn\u2019t see a thing tonight\/Not one star\u201d), delivered in a detached voice, suggests nothing so much as a leather-clad dominatrix pacing the room. \u201cI read one review, and they said, \u2018In her menacing new track \u2026\u2019 and I was like, \u2018Ooh, I made it to \u201cmenacing\u201d!\u2019\u201d says the Virginia native with a laugh. \u201cBut it is a little dark, and a little sexy, too. I\u2019d gone through this toxic relationship and I couldn\u2019t get out of it, so the song became sort of a meditation on addiction, in a way. The dark songs are always the most beckoning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yamagata, 34, elected to release Chesapeake<\/em> on her own Frankenfish label. She financed the album with fan donations through the PledgeMusic website; she also got an assist from her father, who threw in some money he\u2019d set aside for her wedding. \u201cI feel simultaneously totally in and out of control of my life now,\u201d she says. \u201cBut if I earn great success or not, I\u2019ve gotten a lot more chances to take risks and follow my own instincts. My goal is to just keep moving. Whatever feels fresh, inspired and authentic to me is what I\u2019m going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Alanna Nash<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RACHAEL YAMAGATA How she found independence, a new sense of purpose and a banana-colored tent When Rachael Yamagata elected to record her latest album, Chesapeake, at producer John Alagia\u2019s home on the Chesapeake Bay in Easton, Md., she knew there wouldn\u2019t be room enough for all the players and contributors. So she went to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[2828,2615,10156],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4350"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4350"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4461,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4350\/revisions\/4461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}