The Other Side of Zero

Elizabeth & the Catapult present The Other Side of Zero! "If I had to compare our albums," says Elizabeth Ziman, the singer/songwriter/keyboardist behind Elizabeth & the Catapult, "I'd say Taller Children has the sarcastic lightness of a Woody Allen film, and the new record's more like Kubrick or Lynch. It's a bit darker, a bit more tongue-in-cheek - another side of who we are." Not that any of these shifts are a surprise. After all, Elizabeth learned how to manipulate moods through music at an early age, whether that meant performing a wildly-expressive piano piece or belting out bizarre harmonies in New York's world-renowned Young People's Chorus. And now this: The Other Side of Zero. The reason for this shift isn't as simple as a sudden breakup or breakdown. The dissonant strains are lurking between the lines, from the clanging chords and galloping groove of "The Horse and the Missing Cart" to the hopeful but bitter contrasts of "Thank You for Nothing," a heartbroken ballad that channels the Buddhist teachings of an old Leonard Cohen poem. As it turns out, Elizabeth read Cohen's Book of Longing collection while working on the Lincoln Center song cycle, commissioned by NPR's John Schaeferand, that gave The Other Side of Zero its title and a handful of tracks. As the latter's pages sunk in, Elizabeth couldn't help but draw parallels between Cohen's failure to meet Buddhist goals in a monastery and her own coming-of-age struggles in the big city (the New York native grew up in the heart of Greenwich Village). She also wrote Elizabeth & the Catapult's rawest set of recordings yet, including the sputtering, string-grazed percussion of "You and Me," "We All Fall Down," the Buddhist twist on a classic love song, and "Julian Darling," a wake up call to a friend. And then there's the title track. Led by a lean, winding piano line, it builds to a spine-tingling crescendo alongside the honey-dipped harmonies of Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings; a collaboration that was completely unplanned. Not that you'd notice, considering how seamless it sounds. Unlike their thoroughly-demoed debut, an album that took two years to complete, the Zero sessions boiled down to a month of recording with producer Tony Berg (Peter Gabriel, Phantom Planet, Jesca Hoop) and such respected sidemen as guitarist Blake Mills and Tom Waits' longtime touring keyboardist, Patrick Warren. The result was rough but refined, bruised but beautiful, as if Berg had placed a mic in a room and walked away - letting Elizabeth and drummer/multi-instrumentalist Danny Molad do their thing.