Elizabeth & The Catapult have released a new video for song “Happy Pop” off their latest self-released album, Like It Never Happened.
Elizabeth & The Catapult have released a new animated video for the song “Happy Pop” off the band’s latest self-released album Like It Never Happened.
According to Speakeasy, the video was made by artist Michael Arthur, who is the illustrator for Joe’s Pub music venue in New York, and a friend of lead singer Elizabeth Zilman. Eric R. Danton wrote, “The animated clip makes a motif out of a set of beamed eighth notes pulsing in time to the music, in scenes with a rabbit, a pair of disembodied hands pantomiming playing piano, a girl in a red dress exclaiming and more.”
Lead singer and pianist Elizabeth Zilman grew up in Greenwich Village, where she was trained as a classical pianist, writing her first songs in her family’s laundry room. She studied at Berklee College of Music on scholarship to study classical composition, where she pursued her original plans of writing film scores.
In 2002, Zilman toured with Patti Austin as a backing vocalist on an Ella Fitzgerald tribute tour, which added new jazz influences of the likes of Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, and Billy Holiday to her songwriting style.
At Berklee, Zilman met fellow student and drummer Dan Moland, and guitarist Pete Lalish, who began performing together. In 2006, the band moved to Brooklyn where they self-recorded and released their first EP Elizabeth & the Catapult, after which they signed with Verve Records. The band released their first LP on Verve Records in 2009 called Taller Children, followed by their second LP The Other Side of Zero in 2010.
After being dropped by their label Verve Records, who signed them originally in 2008, Zilman bounced back by teaching herself guitar and practicing in subway stations. After asking herself who she really made music for, Zilman decided that her music was for herself, friends, her father, and the old Indian women who blessed her on the streets of Little India in Brooklyn.
Her new album Like it Never Happened, reflects the change in Zilman’s understanding of songwriting, and her switch from piano to guitar as a main instrument on the album. The album was produced by former bandmates Dan Molad and Peter Lalish.
Taylor Coe of Pop Matters said in a recent review,“The production talent of former bandmates Dan Molad and Pete Lalish (the former “Catapult”, if you will) really takes center stage here. The soundscape they fashion is a warm and open one, drawing heavily on ‘60s pop.”
In the years between The Other Side of Zero and their latest album Like It Never Happened, Zilman kept busy writing songs for NPR and learning to play guitar. In the latest video for “Happy Song,” the song uses Zilman’s guitar to showcase her likeness to pop music and bright melodies.
Pairing the bright guitar melodies with Charlie Brown-inspired images showcases a different side to Elizabeth & The Catapults songwriting style. Zilman said in a recent press release,
“Happy Pop’ is about making music for the right reasons, for yourself, your friends, your family… not to please the powers that be. And it’s about jamming in the subway, because that’s where the song was written.”
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