By 2001, Rachael Yamagata had outgrown the funk confines of her previous gig as vocalist for Chicago band Bumpus. Forging a solo path as a piano-based singer-songwriter, she released a self-titled EP in 2002.

Yamagata’s major-label introduction, Happenstance, came out two years later. I enjoyed this hefty slice of intimate pop-rock with lyrics that leaned on the lows. Especially on tracks like “I Want You,” Yamagata reminded me of Fiona Apple, another singer-songwriter not afraid to show her wounds. I particularly took a liking to “Worn Me Down,” in which Yamagata sings of her unrequited/borderline-obsessive love for another:

Though several songs from Happenstance were heard on TV, from The O.C. to Nip/Tuck, the disc barely benefited from the cathode-ray exposure, selling just north of 150,000 discs. Shifts at Yamagata’s label led to her being dropped, and a switch of managers came next. But while life’s only constant is change, I’m sure she couldn’t have predicted that over four years would pass between Happenstance and her sophomore effort.

Elephants… Teeth Sinking Into Heart, a two-disc set, finally surfaced last week. And though Yamagata tells Billboard she’s “not a big fan of long records or double discs by any means,” she ultimately embraced the split after attempting to sequence the songs she’d recorded. Thus, the first disc is a contemplative collection of 10 songs, while the five songs featured on the second are cut from a louder cloth.

While I enjoy these disparate halves of Yamagata’s artistry, “Side Dish Friend,” the first track from disc numero dos has become a fast favorite:

Purchase Elephants…Teeth Sinking Into Heart via iTunes, Amazon.