Happenstance is Yamagata's debut long-player; it is a logical and delightful follow-up to her acclaimed, self-titled EP. It features 13 listed tracks that are either self-penned or written in collaboration with producer John Alagía (John Mayer, Josh Kelly) and mentor/guitarist Kevin Salem. The cuts Worn Me Down and Reason Why carry over, but they have been completely re-recorded. It is an unabashedly lush, deeply textured pop record that makes no apologies for its radio-friendliness or its adornments. This album's elegance reflects a willingness to overreach--emotionally as well as in production. Yamagata's voice is full of elliptical slides and slurs; it swoops, croons, rasps, and whispers; it looks for the crack in a lyric in order to reveal the depth behind it. One can hear that same quality in vocalists such as John Martyn, Billie Holiday, the young Rod Stewart, Dinah Washington, Maggie Bell, and Jeff Buckley. That context embodies within it a certain kind of approach, one that fuses grace with grit, and passion with pathos, but also the slow, erotic burn of control and restraint, where heartache becomes the river on which everything is carried; it is given a voice, an unvarnished utterance. In its grain, phrasing is also a vehicle: for something that lies just beyond the scope of actual words pointing down and in, not out. It contains the pastoral languor of a summer afternoon combined with the emotional intensity of a gleaming stiletto opening a vein. The similarity here is in the quality of performance. Listeners can definitely hear traces of her influences, but these are woven into a fabric that serves the song, not the singer.

1		Be Be Your Love
2		Letter Read
3		Worn Me Down
4		Paper Doll
5		I'll Find a Way
6		1963
7		Under My Skin
8		Meet Me by the Water
9		Even So
10		I Want You
11		Reason Why
12		Moments With Oliver
13		Quiet
14		[Untitled Hidden Track]