Fur Trapper Builds a Gothic Claymation Dream on “Rot for Spite”
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
There’s something deliciously eerie happening in the world of synth-pop right now, and it’s coming from Fur Trapper, the darkly magnetic alter ego of Lisa Rieffel.
Her latest single, “Rot for Spite,” doesn’t just arrive with a music video. It arrives with a whole universe. And not the CGI kind.
This one was sculpted. Pressed. Shaped. Lit. Nudged frame by frame.
In collaboration with her sister, Carla Rieffel, a lifelong clay artist who’s basically had clay under her fingernails since childhood, the pair spent the past year building an entirely tactile world from scratch. Not outsourcing. Not templating. Actually crafting it. The kind of patience that requires coffee, late nights, and probably a few “why did we decide to do this?” laughs along the way. And you can feel that.
The video for “Rot for Spite” carries the moody, gothic whimsy of The Nightmare Before Christmas, but filtered through Fur Trapper’s surreal, synth-drenched lens. It’s shadowy without being heavy. Strange without being inaccessible. Every character feels slightly off in that beautiful, storybook way - like they’ve stepped out of a forgotten stop-motion film from another era.
In a time when most music videos lean into slick digital effects and hyper-polished edits, this one slows down. The textures are alive. You can almost see fingerprints in the clay. The lighting wraps around each sculpted figure like it’s protecting a secret. It’s eerie, yes, but it’s also warm. Handmade in the truest sense. And then there’s the song itself.
“Rot for Spite” floats in with dreamy restraint, cinematic, immersive, the kind of track that feels like it was always meant to soundtrack something bigger than headphones. The production breathes. It doesn’t rush you. Synths shimmer without overwhelming. There’s space in it. Space to think. Space to feel.
What makes the experience hit harder is how perfectly the handcrafted animation grounds the music. The visuals give context to the emotion in the track - not in a literal, heavy-handed way, but in a way that makes the story feel tangible. The clay characters move through a vivid, straightforward storyline that unfolds like a short film rather than a typical music video. There’s intention behind every frame. Nothing feels random. Nothing feels filler.
It honestly feels like watching something that doesn’t really get made anymore.
There’s a cinematic quality here, not blockbuster spectacle, but that slightly unsettling, art-forward storytelling many of us grew up loving. The kind that trusted atmosphere over flash.
The kind that stuck with you because it felt crafted, not generated.
The objects used in the sets aren’t predictable. The characters aren’t glossy or conventionally “pretty.” That’s what makes it compelling. It’s bold in its refusal to look like everything else on your feed. And in that refusal, it becomes a breath of fresh air.
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