Rachael Yamagata is back with her first album in nearly decade. Starlit Alchemy arrives October 3 via Jullian Records, and today she’s shared its opening track, “Backwards.” The song has been with her for years, originally drafted for a musical, it reemerges now as something more personal. Sparse and steady, it wrestles with the tension of moving forward while hoping someone you love can keep pace. “It’s the ache of splitting paths when you know you’ve begun a new journey and are too far on it now to turn around,” Yamagata explains. That push and pull gives “Backwards” its weight, the bittersweet mix of loss and possibility.
Starlit Alchemy is Yamagata’s fifth studio album. Written over several years and recorded largely in her Catskills home studio, the record carries the mark of someone who has built a career on her own terms. She’s managed herself for over a decade, funded this project through relentless touring, and shaped the music without interference.
Rather than a scatter of singles, the album was designed to be heard front to back. It unfolds as a journey through grief, surrender and resilience, each track feeding into the next. Yamagata calls it less a diary than a transmission, something elemental, meant to resonate beyond her own story. Nine years after Tightrope Walker, she returns not as the torch song siren of the past, but as a guide through transformation.
Photo credit: Raymond Flotat
Starlit Alchemy
01 Backwards
02 Birds
03 Carnival
04 Heaven Help
05 Empty Houses
06 Galaxy
07 Blue Jay
08 Jesse
09 Somebody Like Me
10 Hurt
11 Reprise
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