A Berklee School drop-out, Kurt Ralske moved to the UK in the mid-80s where the Jesus And Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine’s fuzzy logic inspired his short-lived band Crash. Back home in New York, a few years later, he transformed into Ultra Vivid Scene – a one-man studio band whose understated, atmospheric songs balanced dark lyrical obsessions (sex, religion, death) with sharp, nagging hooks (as the A-side here attests). His sparse B-side cover of Buffy Sainte-Marie’s ‘Codeine’ eases you into its protagonist’s aching pain, opening with just gently thumbed bass and his fragile, wispy voice. A chug of guitar and swirl of violin propel its third verse (having wisely omitted the original’s gender-specific second), his wearied evocation “I feel like I’m dying/And I wish I was dead” seemingly coming from the heart. An intriguing flip that fulfilled his mission statement of making music that “wore its intelligence on its sleeve”, it undoubtedly introduced indie scenesters to the real life First Nation singer-songwriter (just as the flip of UVS’s ‘She Screamed’ did with Patsy Cline). When Sainte-Marie wrote the original for 1964’s prophetic debut It’s My Way she was detailing her very real dependence on codeine. An opiate almost benignly prescribed for a throat infection, it inspired what producer Maynard Soloman called “a macabre waltz which teeters on the edge of the grave” in his LP liner notes. Ralske kept its rawness intact.