Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Thought Ballune
2012 · Directed by Jordan Blady & Ryan Knowles
1.7K Likes
Best comments
1.“This guy looks like Patrick Carney of The Black Keys.”
More comments
- 2.“I think the video is a response to what happens when you eat 'special' cupcakes. Your head goes up... 'high.'”
- 3.“I need the recipe for those cupcakes.”
The story
Ruban Nielson left the New Zealand band The Mint Chicks, moved to Portland, Oregon, and in 2010 made a record at home that sounds like a tape somebody found in an attic. That was the plan. He used old dictaphones and a reel-to-reel machine, then ran it all through Pro Tools until it felt like a lost archive. He posted the first song anonymously on Bandcamp, the blogs caught it, and Unknown Mortal Orchestra's self-titled debut came out on Fat Possum in June 2011. It later won New Zealand's Taite Music Prize. Thought Ballune was one of its early singles.
The video, directed by Jordan Blady and Ryan Knowles, premiered on Rolling Stone in January 2012. The song swings. The video creeps. It's a parade of balloon-headed people, some of them losing their heads to the sky, which REDEFINE read as a pun on the misspelled title and Stereogum read as a joke about airheads. Willamette Week went in expecting groovy Austin Powers psychedelia and got a David Lynch/Tim Burton freak show of floating heads and discomfort. Beats Per Minute admitted it creeped them out completely.
Sunny song, nightmare balloons. Somebody had fun in the effects room.
