BALLOON BENDER: WHITEHORSE RELEASE “I WANNA MAKE PROMISES (THAT I CAN’T KEEP),” FROM NEW ALBUM MODERN LOVE.

“A trippy Harold Edgerton moment for the 21st Century.”

Watch Whitehorse perform Modern Love at Toronto’s Horseshoe Tavern Friday, March 26.

Live stream tickets here.

Whitehorse’s “I Wanna Make Promises (That I Can’t Keep),” is a loping, laidback wishful think, travelling from aisle 9 to cloud 9 and back again. Today, the song gets an absurdist, mad scientist video treatment, shot in ultra slo-mo, that makes art out of all of the awkward milliseconds, reflexes and micro cringes that go unseen in reality’s standard frame rate.

Directed by Six Shooter’s Artist in Residence Lyle Bell (currently a JUNO Award Album Artwork of the Year nominee for July Talk’s Pray For It), “Promises” video is the evolution and culmination of Bell’s vision for Modern Love’s visual aesthetic, not to mention the product of Six Shooter’s highly creative in-house Art Squad. “The band had done street photos with a massive balloon, the balloon being my idea of a metaphor for “modern love,” says Bell. “It’s beautiful but delicate. Once it pops it’s gone for good!”

“I thought about extreme slow motion videos on YouTube and how it would be cool to capture the definitive ‘pop’ moment with a Phantom camera,” shares Bell. “I was highly inspired by Harold Edgerton’s mid century bullet-time photography (Three Balloons) and I wanted an album cover to be a modern and dynamic version of this. The Promises video, shot at the same time as the album art, is this concept taken two steps further with balloon explosions, 40 pounds of glitter and samurai swords. There is no narrative, it’s again a colourful metaphor for how love can be beautiful and messy at the same time. A trippy Harold Edgerton moment for the 21 century.”

“I Wanna Make Promises (That I Can’t Keep)” is found on Whitehorse’s new full-length album, Modern Love, released last week. The first collection co-produced by the duo, Modern Love looks unflinchingly at the fantasies and realities of romance; how easy it is to get our wires crossed in the wireless age. Impressionistic, ambient and diffusive in sound, Modern Love’s sound taffy pull strings, surf-in-a-seashell guitar tones, and gauzy, hushed vocals.

LISTEN TO MODERN LOVE HERE.