The New Music

For their new video, Toronto’s Born Ruffians, director Jared Raab (Diamond Rings, Forest City Lovers) and artist/computer programmer Rob Bairos sought out the assistance of some old-school technology to dazzle our retinas. According to Stereogum, where “What To Say” premiered yesterday, the gear they decided on was a vintage oscilloscope that is often “used in the sciences, medicine, engineering, telecommunications and industry.”

It might not sound sexy, but damn, does it ever look sexy. Hmm… sexy might not be the right word. Stunning, neat-o and super-rad are probably better.

Panning in on a junky workshop desk, the camera focuses on the oscillograph with an intense close-up of the neon green line. From there it slowly moves from line to lips to Luke Lalonde’s head to the rest of the band members performing to Luke’s head eating its head and back.

Raab explained how he shot it, saying: “The instrument is used for viewing voltages and displays in one complete horizontal scan line –- the means the entire Born Ruffians video is always only showing images made from one continuous line. The video was shot once, edited, oscilloscoped, edited and then shot again directly from the vintage machine … The scope you see in the video was actually built in the ’40s…”

The band posted stills of the video and a cool behind-the-scene shot here.

Born Ruffians’ new album Say It is out through Paper Bag on June 1st.