YAMAGATA, RACHAEL - Tightrope Walker (CD)

Rachael Yamagata Announces Fourth Album Tightrope Walker. Relieving listeners after a four-year musical drought, Rachael Yamagata will release her fourth full-length album, Tightrope Walker, on Sept. 23. To help tide us over until then, Yamagata released a visually striking official video for “Nobody.” The singer-songwriter unveils a dark fire burning within her obstinate self in this sultry visual. While singing with grit about how she finally has the power, dancers mimic Yamagata’s resolve with authority and grace. In the same way, Tightrope Walker as a whole will showcase Yamagata’s perseverance. “When [French high-wire artist] Philippe Petit was asked why he walked the tightrope he responded, ‘Why—there is no why.’ This really fucked me up,” Yamagata says in a press release. She continues: I was devoting an entire theme of the tightrope walker to my new record: defending the weary spirit and empowering the underdog while using the high wire artist as a symbol of how to get through, but it hadn’t yet occurred to me to contemplate the why of getting through or the why of even my own art. Beyond that, why continue in an industry that I’d not yet conquered or pursue this when you have to give up so much to do so? Something propels our survival and search for happiness and it’s this desire to overcome what threatens to break us that continues to fascinate me. If you’re thinking of quitting—anything—this is your record.