MySpace Hottie of the day - Rachael Yamagata

Today, let's meet Rachael Yamagata, a pop/folk singer-songwriter from Arlington, Virginia. She is a Yonsei or fourth-generation Japanese American on her father's side and of Italian and German ancestry on her mother's side. A child of divorced parents, Rachael divided her time growing up between her Sansei Japanese American father, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney and Harvard graduate; and her Italian-German Jewish mother, an artist/painter in New York City. Rachael graduated from the Holton-Arms School for Girls in Bethesda, Maryland, and attended Northwestern and Vassar.

Rachael became the vocalist for the Chicago funk-fusion band Bumpus, spending six years writing and recording three albums with the band and touring around the country. In 2001, after having written a number of songs that didn't fit with the funk style of the band, she decided to take the songs herself and launch a solo career. In September 2002, she landed a two-record deal with Arista's Private Music and her self-titled EP produced by Malcolm Burn, Rachael Yamagata, was released in October.

Her first full-length album, Happenstance, followed in June 2004. It was produced by John Alagia, who previously worked with Dave Matthews, John Mayer, and Ben Folds Five. The single "I Want You" features several members of prominent American Klezmer group The Klezmatics. Videos were made for the first and second singles "Worn Me Down" and "1963".

Her songs have featured on several TV shows, including How I Met Your Mother, ER , Nip/Tuck, Men in Trees, Alias, One Tree Hill, Brothers & Sisters and The O.C., of which she made a guest performance in season 2. Rachael also contributed a song to Mandy Moore's 2007 album, Wild Hope. She also toured with Moore, opening many of her shows around the country.

Her second and most recent studio album is called Elephants... Teeth Sinking Into Heart. It was originally slated for release in the summer of 2007 but was pushed back. In early 2008, her site featured a "teaser video" for the new album. The album is scheduled for release on October 7, 2008.

On May 22, 2008, a new banner was added to her site indicating the digital release of a new EP, Loose Ends, with three new songs, serving as a preview for the now delayed release of her second full-length album.

Rachael also made an appearance in Jason Mraz's second album, singing a song with him called "Did You Get My Message?". She also sings on "Fireflies" and "The Believer" on Rhett Miller's solo CD, Barfly, on Ray Lamontagne's "Till the Sun Turns Black" and "Let it Ride", "Cold Roses", and "Friends", on Ryan Adams' "Cold Roses". She sings backup on six tracks on the Bright Eyes' album Cassadaga.

As for the release of her latest album Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart, Rachael is releasing it in two parts. But that wasn't always her plan.

"I didn’t set out to make a two part album," she 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."

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," Rachael 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."

Rachael sometimes worries that her need to analyze heartache in her songwriting is too often mistaken as depressed obsession. After all, her songs are famously populated by breakups. "I see it more as a fascination with human relationships and behavior," she says, "the struggles we create and the strength we gain." Her lyrics display an ability to draw new wisdom and confidence from every devastating experience in the hope that the next time will be different. Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart, reveal a woman not only undaunted by such losses, but smart enough to know she deserves a lot more than she’s been asking for.

"My mother said recently that Happenstance is the beauty of your ’20s, this one is the richness of your ’30s - of someone who’s been through the mill and is trying to make the choice between optimism and defeatism," she says.

If you would like to know more about this ethereal artist or listen to tracks from her latest album Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart, check out her profile at http://www.myspace.com/rachaelyamagata