When I began writing the lyrics for this record, they came out as distorted memories of the past. I’d recently come across all these writings from when I was a kid, and all these unfinished lyrics and poems. I’d started having all these bizarre kinds of anxious dreams about being in an unfamiliar place. “I was sitting across the street from my building, looking back at it, trying to imagine what it would be like not living there anymore. “That was the reason I called it Keepsake,” says Ziman, an ebullient and thoughtful conversationalist, from her studio/loft in NYC (the landlord relented Ziman’s back home). Well, who’s to say where anything begins or ends? But for Ziman, who records as Elizabeth And The Catapult, Keepsake was definitely a milestone record-the end of one thing, and the beginning of something else. Or it began when she started leafing through old journals and diaries, little half-finished snatches of lyrics and couplets and freewriting, and tried to see if she could shape them through to some kind of completion. Or it began when she started keeping a dream journal, writing down snippets of visions in the middle of the night, or first thing in the morning on awakening. Keepsake (Compass), Elizabeth Ziman’s fourth record, began when her landlord was considering jacking up the rent and she had to move across the street into a tiny apartment, far away from her recording gear and the baby grand piano on which she loved to write. It's a fitting end to a thoughtful and ultimately hopeful album that doubles as a songwriting showcase.Elizabeth And The Catapult’s Keepsake is part memoir, part dream journal-and all rejuvenating Having said that, Ziman presents a solid front here, and that includes the hidden 13th track, "New Beginnings," a dreamy surf tune with hot sand between its toes and production by Richard Swift. Keepsake holds its share of wistful reflection ("Magic Chaser," "Better Days") and sentiments somewhere in between, but it gets downright forlorn on the arresting "Land of Lost Things." A piano-and-strings lament with Sondheim-ian overtones, it features reverb-rich production by Mark Marshall and proves to be an album highlight. The album's not all bright and bubbly, though. An album that embraces moving forward from hard-earned life lessons, the songwriter turns the lens on herself on "Underwater." Also upbeat in tone but with lusher, full-band production by former bandmate Dan Molad, it takes stock of personal growth with lyrics like "I'm not afraid of sleeping like I used to be/I can crash into the waves, let them roll over me." Elsewhere, the earworm "We Can Pretend" functions as a jaunty anthem for selective reminiscing with handclaps and Mellotron among its palette. A classically trained pianist who took up the guitar before her previous album and writes on both, she puts piano front and center on the Randy Newman-esque "Mea Culpa." A pair of character sketches about reaching personal crossroads, the song's buoyant, racing piano accompaniment and Ziman's playful delivery may seem to underplay serious subject matter, but, after all, any hardship stems from their own bad behavior. In addition to touring and appearing on albums by bands like Kishi Bashi and Son Lux during that stretch, she also carved time to score a handful of documentary films with Paul Brill. Following 2014's Like It Never Happened by three years, it was written and recorded at various stops in the interim, with six different producers not counting Ziman herself.
Keepsake is the fourth album and Compass Records debut of Elizabeth & the Catapult, the project of New York singer/songwriter Elizabeth Ziman.
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