Call for Papers: Anachronism in Art - Pros and Cons

Pepe Deluxé – "Go Supersonic" (video / stream)

Tuesday, Jul 17, 2012
Typically, when a band releases a video for their new single, they release a video for their new single. That video is often a series of spiffy, moving images that relate visually and/or thematically to the song that accompanies it, for the purpose of selling said song. Pepe Deluxé is not a typical band.
cover art

Pepe Deluxé

Go Supersonic

(Asthmatic Kitty)

Continuing to defy logic and expectations like the noble sasquatch defies discovery, the Finnish psychedelic anomoly’s new offering for “Go Supersonic” isn’t so much a video for one of the best songs from their recent masterpiece Queen of the Wave as it is a mock advertisement for the Super Sonic Sound System, a wood panelled modular package presented by a go-go dancing marketing manager. It’s an “homage to the glorious age of Hi-Fi, when speakers were big and far apart, many people actually built their own systems and portable meant ‘with a forklift’”. As such, it has nothing to do with the album’s pop opera libretto, and the song is talked over and tweaked throughout the video, making it hard to actually hear the music the video was made for.



  
Complicating matters, they went ahead and released the entire Go Supersonic EP (including a tongue-in-cheek downtempo cover by Husky Rescue and remixes by Secuem and The Voluntary Butler Scheme) as a free download from their soundcloud, further hindering their ability to profit from this video. As always, Pepe Deluxé is not about chasing down cash and making themselves marketable, but delivering a peek into worlds so packed with familiar obscurities and fetishistic anachronisms that, upon reflection, cause the experiencer to question the nature of our present reality. If nothing else, Pepe Deluxé continue to offer a unique perspective on what music can and could be.





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