When Elizabeth has dreams, they're lucid; so after writing them down in a journal, the entries transformed into deeply vulnerable lyrics. Now she's ready to share her songs and the lesson she's learned -- we're all in control of the way our memories are remembered, retold, and internalized.
"I feel as though my life is a fluctuating state of expectation, hope and regret," she says. "I mythologize both the past and the future and writing memories or dreams in a diary helps me remember, but also gives me even more freedom to mold my experiences into whatever I want them to be."
Elizabeth and The Catapult will release
Keepsake on October 20 via Compass Records.
For
Elizabeth Ziman, who performs as
Elizabeth and The Catapult,
Keepsake is her most personal and cohesive record yet. It's about nostalgia and transformation, a distillation of her experience with memories over time shaping her perspective on reality. This is none more evident than in album opener "
We Can Pretend", a track based on her childhood diary entries and a hyperbolic portrayal of her experiences growing up in the West Village with her friends in the 90s.
"As an adult looking back, I'm interested in my naive, escapist recollections, as if my younger self knew how to sprinkle fairy dust onto the concrete of a dark, gritty street,"
Elizabeth explains. "In this song I wanted to explore the concept of consciously-exaggerated memories to reinterpret my experiences, again and again."
Originally offered as an early gift to those who pre-ordered the album through PledgeMusic, "We Can Pretend" is available below.
The empowering sentiment of the album continues with "Underwater", which states, "I'm not afraid of sleeping like I used to be/oh I can take to dreaming like a fish in the sea." Then there's the refrain of "Better Days", which revisits Ziman's youthful moments coping with disappointments and fears. "On better days, I believe I believe in the words I sing aloud/I recall what I meant when I first wrote them down/And I don't second guess what I learned along the way/it's all just the same in better days." It ends with, "I just to take it all like a woman twice my age."
"There's a theme on this record of reclaiming yourself. I've been down this road a couple of times. I can be easier on myself, no need to be afraid of falling. I still fall - I'm just better at it now."
Ziman fleshed out the album with the help of longtime collaborators
Dan Molad, who produced most of
Keepsake, and
Peter Lalish, both from
Lucius.
Rob Moose (
Bon Iver,
Antony and the Johnsons,
Joan as Policewoman) among many others, helped arrange strings and other backing tracks. Once they had enough material, they recorded at the Portland, Oregon studio of
Richard Swift, whose album
Atlantic Ocean is a huge influence on Ziman, and later at Panoramic House Studio just outside of San Francisco, surrounded by deer, trees and the Pacific.
Her West Coast sessions brought about the warmer, more serene sounds of Juno pads and Mellotrons, while back in her beloved Brooklyn apartment, she overdubbed and recorded a few tracks solo, like the whimsical "
Land of Lost Things".
"I was exploring how much cool stuff I could make in my house with just a sty mic, a preamp and my amazing piano," she says. "My baby served me well."
Though she would've ideally recorded the album in a couple weeks, Ziman had to spread the sessions out while also touring with the likes of
Sara Bareilles and Kishi Bash and working on documentary film scores with partner
Paul Brill (
In My Father's House, Knuckleball, The Other Shore). Her latest film with Brill, the abortion rights documentary
Trapped, won numerous awards including a Peabody, a Special Jury Award for
Social Impact Filmmaking at Sundance, and was featured on
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
Elizabeth and The Catapult will be touring through the end of the year behind
Keepsake so expect dates to be announced soon.
Comments
To post a comment, you must
register and
login.
