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Little Band of Sailors by Eric Leiser

Little Band of Sailors by Eric Leiser

Artist and director Eric Leiser, an alumnus of CalArts experimental animation porgramme, offers a new take on experimental animation with his stop-motion music video for Rachel Mason's band "Little Band of Sailors".

The band is fronted by Rachel Mason, a sculptor and a performer, who has toured and shared stages with acts as diverse as Prince Rama, Light Asylum, Josephine Foster, and Ed Askew. The title of their debut album Woman with a Suitcase (released June 13th, 2013) is inspired by the image on the album's cover created by John Baldessari, a living legend of conceptual art.

Not your average cute (or even scary) prehistoric creatures; the beings in Eric Leiser's world follow a long-prescribed route filled with symbols of power and test their survival chances, even when the world around them collapses and is reconfigured again (and again). Even though "life is a heavy load", these creatures never lose their alternating colors -even when they are reduced to connecting dots. The recreation park of life has still some room for these lovingly-made soldiers of fortune.

Eric Leiser's work includes his feature animation film Glitch in the Grid [review], as well as the music video If I Was.

Find his Vimeo page, and read the associated press release.

PRESS RELEASE:

Artist/Director Eric Leiser creates a unique stop motion animated music video for Artist/Musician Rachel Mason's band "Little Band of Sailors" promoting the album "Woman with a Suitcase" released June 13th 2013. Little Band of Sailors offer a deliciously dark, intense, and hook-filled sound. Their live shows are a costumed spectacle of raw energy. Jefferson Airplane meets Black Sabbath in another dimension.

The band is fronted by Rachel Mason, a sculptor and a performer, who has toured and shared stages with acts as diverse as Prince Rama, Light Asylum, Josephine Foster, and Ed Askew.

Dubbed, "marvelously strange" by the Village Voice, her lyrics revel in surreal narrative stories weaving history, science fiction fantasy, with lovestruck invented characters. Dmitriy Ivolgin crafts intricate and driving melodic riffs on bass while Mara Mayer wails and puffs out improvised squeels on bass clarinet. In live shows they play with the most sexy female Israeli-Egyptian drummer in New York Tsil Press.

The title of their debut album Woman with a Suitcase is inspired by the image on the album's cover created by John Baldessari, a living legend of conceptual art.

"Woman with a Suitcase may initially feel episodic, after repeated listens the album feels as though it tells a rather complex story — each episode actually advances the story along."

- Joy of Violent Movement

"Mason is like this hybrid of a goddess and Alice Cooper she's unreal to watch live."

- Amy Grimm, Whatever Blog

"Blind snowmen who melt from body heat, murderous scarecrows, castaways that have to cope with a dead friend, exploding turbines...Let's dub it 'wasteland energy.'"

- Kiss them For Me Blog
====================================

Artist/Director Eric Leiser is an award-winning artist, filmmaker, animator, puppeteer, writer, holographer working in the New York and California.

A graduate from CalArt's Experimental Animation program, he creates animated and live action feature films and shorts as well as works
integrating animation, puppetry, painting, holography, live performance and installation. Leiser is interested in how animation transforms perception when it is combined with live action space, creating a fantastical, spiritual and surrealistic quality.

His animated/live action films have been shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Istanbul Modern Museum of Art, MoMA, New Museum, The MIT Museum, The Ruben H. Fleet Space Museum, Thessaloniki Contemporary Art Museum, Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas Museum de Buenos Aires, MASS MoCA,(BFI) British Film Institute, Four-Dimensions Space Art Museum, Beijing, CAFA Beijing, Aster Arts Plaza Hiroshima, Anthology Film Archives, Los Angeles Filmforum, REDCAT, the San Francisco Film Society, Goldsmiths College London, California Institute of the Arts and the School of the Art Institute in Chicago among others.

His films have screened at film festivals worldwide such as the Annecy International Film Festival, Hiroshima International Animation Film Festival, The Istanbul International Animated Film Festival, The San Francisco International Animated Film Festival, EXIS Experimental Film Festival, Seoul, Korea, Fringe Festival, Edinburgh, among many others.

 He has made 35 short films, eight of which appear in the DVD release Eclectic Shorts by Eric Leiser, and three features: Faustbook, released April 25, 2006 by Vanguard Cinema International, and "Imagination", released theatrically in the US and Internationally in summer 2007 and February 2008 on DVD by Vanguard Cinema International.

"Imagination" was featured in the May 2008 issue of Animation Magazine. "Glitch in the Grid" Eric's third live action/animated feature film was released theatrically in the US and Internationally on October 2011 and February 2012 on DVD/VOD through Vanguard Cinema International.

The film premiered at the Annecy International Animation Festival in Annecy, France and the Hiroshima International Animation Festival in Hiroshima, Japan, the two most prestigious and respected animation festivals in the world. The film premiered nationally as the opening night film at the San Francisco International Animation Festival and went to win awards at various smaller international and national film festivals.

The film has a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was reviewed by Variety, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle among many others and featured on Apple Trailers and Itunes.
He is a founding member of Albino Fawn Productions along with his brother and collaborator musician Jeffrey Leiser.
Eric is an alumni of CalArt's Experimental Animation program.

For updates, albinofawn.com

Woman with a Suitcase
Release date: June 13, 2013

Band:
Rachel Mason – Vocals, Guitar, Keys
Dmitriy Ivolgin – Bass
Mara Mayer – Bass Clarinet
Tslil Gispan – Drums

Contact:
www.littlebandofsailors.com
Hometown: Queens, NY

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