Festival Preview: Leerone, Indie Folk-Rock, Experimental-Theatrical, Feisty Music

Jewlicious Festival is proud to welcome native Los Angeleno Leerone to our Acoustic Stage!

Leerone is the musical equivalent of an ice cream sundae with a vodka chaser. On her Facebook page she describes her music as “Indie-folk-rock-experimental-theatrical-feisty-music-that-comes-from-a-real-place”.

Over the course of her inspired career, Leerone has triumphantly upended pop conventions while hewing to the great singer-songwriter traditions of her Los Angeles forebears (think Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell and Randy Newman, to name a distinguished few). Now, on the heels of her two EPs, Leerone delivers her most vivid, most wide-ranging recording to date, Imaginary Biographies, wherein the LA singer-songwriter employs her formidable composing, performing and arranging skills to further advance a fiercely independent artistic vision.

About the video:

Los Angeles singer/songwriter Leerone once again elevates her artistry to rarefied new heights with her shudder-inducing new music video, Empty Houses. Conceived by Leerone and produced by LA videographer/animator Hank Friedmann—the same boy genius who oversaw Leerone’s 2008 video “Care For Some Whiskey?”—Empty Houses masterfully employs fantasy and gothic sensibilities in support of Leerone and Hank’s uncompromising creative ambitions.

The new video imagines Leerone as the sole attendee at an old woman’s funeral. Courtesy of Friedmann and his animated sorcery, viewers are transported away from the graveyard through the spirit-haunted halls of the deceased woman’s mansion, where Leerone glimpses scenes from the woman’s tragic life. These playback images prompt Leerone to reflect on her own life. Eerie, picturesque, and gorgeously realized, Empty Houses makes a poignant visual statement about fate, life, choices and possibilities.

Empty Houses is Leerone’s third foray into music video and short film. Her 2008 debut video “Care For Some Whiskey?” finds the singer sharing the spotlight with a cast of endearingly freakish Claymation friends. Leerone’s subsequent clip “To Fill the Void” was directed by Claire Carré (Brett Dennen, Sia, Rainer Maria), depicting Leerone as a wistful dishwasher at a roadside diner. In all, the three videos serve as a audio-visual complement to Leerone’s 2008 CD, “Imaginary Biographies.”