2/22/06

We have finally charted on the CMJ top 200. A big thanks to all the stations supporting the record. Also we have a bunch of shows coming up. Hope to see you there. Spring is almost here. Also sand cats are really cute and need our protection.

Past News

The Record was #18 most added on the CMJ chart last week
with airplay on over 30 stations. WFUV in New York, WXJM in
Virginia, WTUL in Baton Rouge, and many others:
Thanks for all the support!

Self titled debut now available on itunes
new recording on www.myspace.com/elizabethharper
Show at the Mercury Lounge with Field Music on sat 1/28
and #2 on www.bigtakeover.com Top Ten list
and it was 60 degrees yesterday in new york city.

Over in the Pacific Rim, "Trouble in the Palace is in rotation on Fm Kyoto, FM Nagoya, and FM Tokyo. We (heart) Japan!

-- We are very pleased to announce the upcoming release of Elizabeth Harper's s/t album on Roji Records in Japan. Also, some new press has been coming in - here is a sampling:

On her debut LP (issued on UK indie Angular), Brooklyn-based Harper and producer/guitarist Scott Rosenthal reel around the same fountain from which Morrissey and Marr drew their wondrous debut The Smiths. If Murray Lightburn of the Dears is the 'black Morrissey,' it's only fair to crown Harper as the female Morrissey, as evidenced by her lilting phrasing on the arch yet heartfelt "Trouble in the Palace," the chiming-guitar-washed "Low Tide," and the coy challenge of "Accidental Flirt." Harder-edged tracks such as "Parlor Window" and "Charles Bridge" even position her as a new "pretender" to the throne of Chrissie Hynde. But Harper manages to transcend her influences by virtue of her supple command of voice and sharp songwriting. Word to domestic record labels: This LP deserves a widespread release!
- The Big Takeover, #56 Summer '05

--You'll be hooked from the first second Harper sings with a voice soft as the down comforter your mother used to tuck you into at bedtime...pretty pop and sweet sighs that we're already in love with.
- Performing Songwriter, May '05

--We'd like to thank JANE magazine for including the track "Parlor Window" on their latest compilation CD along side such artists as Duran Duran, Bright Eyes, Death Cab for Cutie and the Dears.

***

LONDON CALLING - Elizabeth was mentioned in this week's issue of the NME, an influential UK music rag. In the lead review, our friends at the NME picked Don Juan as one of the standout tracks on the Angular Compilation and published a lovely black and white picture of Elizabeth. Apparently her “60’s style pop” was recommended “for those who like a glimpse of the future.”

click for NME review


***

Elizabeth's track "Don Juan" was selected for a compilation entitled "The New Cross: an Angular Sampler" that just came out in the UK. One lovely reviewer at SoundsXP fawned over "my personal favorite, the jaunty Morrissey does C86 saccharine sweetness of New York's Elizabeth Harper. Twee twee and I love thee."

The compilation has just sold out of its initial pressing, thanks in part to NME darlings and recent EMI signings Bloc Party, the swaggering post-punk of the Violets, and the swooning Brit Pop of Luxembourg.

Check out www.angularrecords.co.uk for related articles and info on how to purchase the record.

Also, look out for more Elizabeth Harper music coming out on Angular this spring.


SMITHS MAGAZINE - LONDON

"She has shaggy hair and a cute face and is really quite tiny, like a young Chrissie Hynde. When she smiles she looks a bit like a shy teenager. You want to wrap her up in cotton wool....What got me hooked is her voice. Hauntingly beautiful, it glides from aching (on Sedative) to sultry (Accidental Flirt) to exuberant (Don Juan)."

TIMEOUT LONDON

"A rising star in the lower Manhattan music scene, Harper brings her delicate pop song-writing to Goldsmiths for the first of a number of dates this week."


BEST FEMALE MUSICIANS.COM

"Elizabeth Harper is one of the most interesting young musical artists to surface in recent years in the lower Manhattan scene. With a voice that of times recalls a young Chrissie Hynde in it's softer moments, Harper set's her clever insightful lyrics to haunting melodies using templates, ranging from traditional folk to dreamy Velvet Underground style rock."

David McGee, formerly of Rolling Stone
Author of - Go Cat Go, The Life and Times of Carl Perkins

VOICE CHOICES BEST OF NYC
ELIZABETH HARPER+JILL SOBULE

"Harper is a talented songwriter, with a very fine voice. She is also the most upbeat performer of melancholy tunes you may ever hear. Unless you're paying close attention, you'll find yourself bopping and tapping to songs about heartache, pain, and other assorted miseries...but you should have a good time. Headliner Sobule, around for over a decade, kissed a girl. Village underground, at 8:30."(Aber)

ELIZABETH HARPER+MOLDY PEACHES
Mercury Lounge, Fri at 6:30

"One of the best folk-friendly females playing this silly 'Corporate Music Jack-off' fest—by herself her stuff's a tad melancholy and delicate à la Chan Marshall or Elliot Smith, with her band the pop is more bubbly like a way less cheesy Edie Brickell but with slight spices of '80s Brit-pop (the Cure, the Smiths) thrown in. The Moldy Peaches have truckfuls of wackiness and cuteness, but they match the high jinks with talent and great songs. Plus they've spawned a great new genre—folk-porn! With Sound of Urchin, Kevin Tahista's Red Terror, Hopewell, Tyler Keith and the Preacher's Kids, and A.R.E. Weapons."
- Village Voice, Sept. 12

BEEKILLER
www.beekiller.net

"Elizabeth Harper is the only singer-songwriter with shoulders narrow and elastic enough to bear the mantle of Morrissey and Marr, and pull it across our eyes, unrecognizable and instantly seductive. Her songs are tiny flower petals, stirring under the wings of love-sick hummingbirds with fluttering hearts."

TRIS MCCALL
www.TrisMcCall.net

"a remarkable original -- Lower Manhattan's breathy, plaintive, formidably expressive Elizabeth Harper. I'm not sure if Harper is playing with a band or on her own, but in either case, she's a joy to watch, and there's something simultaneously dizzying and liberating about her slurred, madly-romantic melodies and arrangements. Harper manages to turn the trick of creating a captivating, otherworldly, quasi-mystical vibe with her music while remaining extremely literate. If you can get transcendence and intelligence at the same time, well, that's an unbeatable combination."

BILLBURG MAGAZINE
www.billburg.com

"very talented young lady, beautiful voice, exciting material "

November 30, 2003
Your friends & neighbors

Despite her proclivity for acoustic performance, Elizabeth Harper isn't a folkster; her most obvious musical antecedent is Johnny Marr. Nonetheless, through context if not intention, she passes for one, because she's so frequently seen in their company. She's always been willing to wear her literary aspirations on her sleeve, but in New York City, that's not what distinguishes her -- Suzanne Vega, after all, has already created running room for formidably intelligent women with acoustic guitars and crisply-penned autobiographies. Because of the tremolo and the swoop of her impossibly elegant singing voice, Harper gets a rep for being precious -- it's not unearned, but it's also misleading. Behind the gossamer strands and all that waxwing butterfly junk lurks a very incisive commentator, and if her medium is delicate watercolor rather than bold oil paint, she's still a portrait-artist first and a confessor only after that. Over the past three years, Harper and collaborator Scott Rosenthal have, on record, developed for themselves an evocative impressionism, vivid with images and rich with powerful characterization. "Rock Like A Baby" and "Low Tide" are either the apotheosis of this approach, or a springboard for a recording career of no small magnificence. I think it's the latter. Certainly they've got the material for it: a back catalogue of twenty outstanding songs or so, many of which have received cursory studio treatments before they were able to figure out how to translate Harper's theatrical-delicate vocals into a pop song idiom. No such problems here; the singing is masterful, ranging from a breathy Margo Timmins-like contralto to a stratospheric and pure upper register. The melodies are supported by Rosenthal's impeccable arrangement algebra -- washes of vibrato guitar, gentle piano, brushed drums, misty non-instrument specific reverb. All of that is great. But, you know, I don't listen to Edith Piaf; for me, there's got to be content behind the beauty. Harper delivers with a pair of indelible seaside narratives, populated by wholly believable characters drawn in her characteristic clear-eyed style. The world has waited long enough -- I demand a whole album of this.
- Your friends & neighbors, November 30, 2003

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