PULP WAVE (5)
By:
December 10, 2022
We are pleased to present a 10-part series, by Canadian semiotician and HILOBROW friend Charles Leech, sampling the recombinant artwork that he sells via his Etsy shop RecombinantCulture.
PULP WAVE: INTRO by Charles Leech | PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, LET ME GET WHAT I WANT | PLANET CLAIRE | ONE OF OUR SUBMARINES | LET ME GO | PERFECT KISS | BELA LUGOSI’S DEAD | JUST LIKE HEAVEN | HAPPY HOUR | SHOUT | FALL ON ME. PS: Here’s a Spotify playlist. Also see: QUIRK YOUR ENTHUSIASM series | POPSZTÁR SAMIZDAT series | FILE X series | SURVIVAL SAMPLER.
I’ve done three different covers for New Order’s ‘Perfect Kiss’, because I think it’s simply the best pop/rock song ever written. There’s an extended version, 8:39m long, much of which is an extended outro and which gives me goosebumps of awe every time I listen to it – to this day, over 30 years later. Hell, I’ve given myself goosebumps just TYPING about it.
As the lyrics make clear, the perfect kiss is the kiss of death. I take that to mean the Liebestod, the famous ‘love-death’ of Wagner (‘Tristan und Isolde’); the idea that only in whatever lies beyond can we ever be truly connected with those we love, since the burdens of the material world will forever keep us sundered. Finding and adapting this cover was great fun. Did I mention I love skulls?
CURATED SERIES at HILOBROW: LINOCUT 2022 by Lawry Hutcheson | PULP WAVE by Charles Leech | DRAWING TABLE WORLD by Theo Ellsworth | PARAMAX by Max Glenn | YUKO ODA by Yuko Oda | PLAGUE YEAR by Rick Pinchera | NOOSFERA by Charles Glaubitz | A SILENT HALLUCINATION by Alex Gerasev | BUNNY CITY by Gary Panter | HOP UP by Lucy Sante | HERE BE MONSTERS by Mister Reusch | DOWNTOWNE by Bradley Peterson | OUTBOUND TO MONTEVIDEO by Mimi Lipson | STERANKOISMS by Douglas Wolk | COOLING OFF THE COMMOTION by Chenjerai Kumanyika | UNFLOWN by Jacob Covey | ADEQUATED by Franklin Bruno | PINAKOTHEK by Lucy Sante | BIGFOOT ISLAND by Michael Lewy | DAILY DRUMPF by Rick Pinchera | WINDS OF MAGIC by James Parker | MUSEUM OF FEMORIBILIA by Lynn Peril | ROBOTS + MONSTERS by Joe Alterio | ANNOTATED GIF by Kerry Callen | NOMADBROW by Erik Davis | & many others.