Having already issued a handful of homemade recordings, Elizabeth & the Catapult sound unusually assured on their major-label debut. Taller Children bounces between piano jazz, coffeehouse pop/rock, and contemporary lounge, a mix that appeals to NPR-loving sophisticates without alienating those who prefer mainstream radio. At the center of the storm is frontwoman Elizabeth Ziman, a disciple of Ella Fitzgerald and a contemporary of Regina Spektor, Ingrid Michaelson, and other piano-wielding female songwriters. Ziman distances herself from those females by simply casting her net wider, helming a torch ballad one minute and piling multi-tracked harmonies atop electro percussion the next. The presence of studio wiz kid Mike Mogis -- producer extraordinaire for the likes of Rilo Kiley, Cursive, and Tilly & the Wall -- helps fuel the eclectic set list, as the band no longer splits its time between songwriting and production duties. Free to do whatever they wish, the three musicians explore the boundaries of pop music with wide-eyed fascination and veteran competency, using the studio to their advantage without resorting to the sort of dense, grandly orchestrated music that can't be replicated in concert. Some orchestral flourishes do pepper the album's ballads -- "Rainiest Day of Summer" evokes a rainy Manhattan landscape with Brill Building strings, while "Right Next to You" brims with gauzy layers of keyboard, vibraphone, and flügelhorn -- but Taller Children devotes more time to the talents of the band, not its host of sidemen. This is an album that reveals its layers upon many listens, an album that channels the sophistication and elegance of Fifth Avenue while keeping its head in the bohemian enclave of the West Village. In short: wholly agreeable, very New York, and quite promising.
photo: Peter M. Van HattemElizabeth & The Catapult are a trio from Brooklyn. Fronted by singer-songwriter Elizabeth Abby Ziman, the band offers a selection of jazzy pop tunes that will go down with the cognoscenti that hang out in the small venues and cafe's, sharing a love for lyrics that tell stories about soul searching. Guitarist Pete Lalish and drummer Danny Molad hold back most of the tim...
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Taller Children is fun, cute, and you don't even have to be this tall to ride.
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Taller Children is fun, cute, and you don't even have to be this tall to ride.
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Elizabeth & the Catapult Momma's Boy is a great song! It is so catchy that I am sure could be developed into International top list song. I failed to find lyrics though.
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Elizabeth and the Catapult deal in the kind of affecting pop music that could have one person pouncing the streets in utter amusement as easily as it could have another trapped in a tear stained corner of their room. It's music for living, and everything that comes along with the act of. Here Elizabeth Ziman and Pete Woodman sit down and chat about their band, their live performances, and the...
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photo: Peter M. Van HattemElizabeth & The Catapult are a trio from Brooklyn. Fronted by singer-songwriter Elizabeth Abby Ziman, the band offers a selection of jazzy pop tunes that will go down with the cognoscenti that hang out in the small venues and cafe's, sharing a love for lyrics that tell stories about soul searching. Guitarist Pete Lalish and drummer Danny Molad hold back most of the tim...
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My introduction to the debut album from Elizabeth and the Catapult came after a fair amount of avoidance on my part, though I can't say exactly why. Perhaps it was my lukewarm reaction to the record's first single or the sheer amount of female pop albums being thrown my way of late, but until a copy showed up in the mail I was missing out on Taller Children, a more than solid album from an exci...
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Elizabeth and the Catapult deal in the kind of affecting pop music that could have one person pouncing the streets in utter amusement as easily as it could have another trapped in a tear stained corner of their room. It's music for living, and everything that comes along with the act of. Here Elizabeth Ziman and Pete Woodman sit down and chat about their band, their live performances, and the...
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For a band like, Elizabeth and the Catapult, the charm and understated pop seems to come easy. The band, consisting of Elizabeth Ziman, guitarist Pete Lalish and drummer Danny Molad has made great strides in 2009, celebrating the release of their album, Taller Children, widespread publicity including recognition by KEXP and Perez Hilton, near [...]
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Brooklyn’s Elizabeth & The Catapult exploded into indie-pop consciousness this spring with their debut release Taller Children. A high point of the record, what Rolling Stone called “the album's finest moment,” is a funky stomp through Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” (available for download below). Cover Me caught up with the trio backstage before a sold-out Manhattan concert. We
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