On the Record: Elizabeth and the Catapult On The Other Side of Zero
MIDTOWN MANHATTAN: This week, Brooklyn-based pop duo Elizabeth and the Catapult released their new album, The Other Side of Zero, on Verve Forecast. We met the band at a listening party for the new record, which sharpens their unique indie-chamber-pop style with a refreshingly refined sound.
"The Other Side of Zero" is Elizabeth and the Catapult's second album on Verve/Universal.
Produced by Tony Berg (Squeeze, Aimee Mann, Phantom Planet) and engineered by Shawn Everett out at Berg’s Zeitgeist Studios in Los Angeles, The Other Side of Zero could indeed catapult the duo into the mainstream now that the mainstream has embraced artists like Feist and Allison Krauss.
To make this record, classically trained singer and pianist Elizabeth Ziman and drummer Danny Molad brought tightly demoed songs and an openness and indie sensibility into the studio with Berg and Everett, who’ve worked as producer/engineer team on records with Ozomatli, Bruce Hornsby and Jesca Hoop among others.
“We did pretty intense demos on our own, and had initially planned on just going to finish the record with someone,” recalls Ziman, “But then we met Tony and were just so enamored with him that we decided to do everything from scratch with him, and have one sound. That’s really the way he works, anyway. I don’t think he’d have it any other way.”
Highlights in the resulting album include the radio/tv/film-ready “You and Me,” seemingly constructed with all the twang and polish of a Nashville pop session, the Tori Amos-esque “Time (We All Fall Down),” the Appalachian-style stomper “Go Away My Lover,” and the title track — a slow slide guitar-piano ballad sung in duet with Gillian Welch.
“Early on, when I played the title track for Tony, he heard it more as a duet or trio and he asked what I imagined would be the perfect voice for a duet, if I could do it with anyone in the world,” recalls Ziman. “And I thought about it and then realized it was Gillian Welch who’s a big influence of mine. And then a couple weeks later she just happened to be hanging out at the studio because she’s friends with his daughter, Z, [of The Like] — I mentioned it to her and she listened to the track and agreed to do it!”
There’s a Welch-like sparse and introspective quality to some of Elizabeth and the Catapult’s material, but the band and production generally swing it into chamber- or more eccentric pop territory.
Elizabeth and the Catapult is Elizabeth Ziman and Danny Molad.
“Tony worked with Jesca Hoop who has this really interesting, fairy-like sound, her own musical language really,” says Ziman on Berg’s appeal as a producer. “And I also really loved what he’d done with Aimee Mann. Plus, he produced a Phantom Planet record that Danny was really into. We also had some connections to his engineer, Shawn Everett, who was doing the Weezer record [Hurley] there while we were recording our album. It was really cool — we’d come into the studio in the afternoon at the end of the Weezer sessions, and get to hang out with Rivers!”
Seems that on The Other Side of Zero, Elizabeth and the Catapult benefit from having let a new producer and engineer into the process, and changing up their environments and even musical palette. “There’s a lot less piano on this record than I’m used to, simply because the piano he had in the studio was old-timey and worn-down,” Ziman notes, “But it actually had this endearing kind of broken quality to it, so we used it sparingly. Tony’s also a really great guitar player, he’s played with Peter Gabriel on several records, so we definitely utilized that as well.”
Additional recording on The Other Side of Zero is credited to Alex Wong at Angelhouse Studios and Steve Wall at Gardentone, both in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Pick up a copy of the record on iTunes and for more on the band and tour dates, visit: http://www.elizabethandthecatapult.com