Ultra Vivid Scene (and anything else Kurt Ralske's done) -- C/D?

there's a mirror site here.

ps kurt's website

What's happend to ol' Kurt Ralske anyway?

(A pervert of sound that is! Honest! I will say nothing of those kinky Victorian porn books he kept beneath the mixing desk!)

See, I was hoping you would speak up.

me! i love love love that album with the big toothbrush on the cover.

I was listening to the whole album myself, which prompted the thread. Songs like "The Whore of God" and "Crash" and all that are fine things.

And then he ended up producing a band I was in back in NYC - and our main guy actually TOLD HIM, so of course, he mercilessly played on it, whispering in my headphones to freak me out when I was trying to sing. No, he's a really really lovely guy. Truly nice man.

Ultra Vivid Scene covered it as a b-side, and it's on the Moth Wranglers' (Magnetic Fields related) album as well. Great song.

(Wait, I didn't say that. yes I did.)

i had forgotten about that. his name was also mentioned on The Angels Of Light's New Mother, but i didn't pay enough attention to tell...

a) rich kid from Michigan who says 'dude!' like Geeta
b) gothBjork Irish girl with naturally black hair?

Interesting to read all your comments. FYI I gave up making music entirely a few years ago + now focus on making video art, which I've had some nice success with. I've completely forgotten about UVS -- it seems like some weird half-remembered dream.

My own take on the UVS records is...well they're for me personally embarrassing, because I don't really think "pop stardom" was anything I was ever suited for + probably should never have pursued. So I think of these records the way someone might think of their career as a former stripper, or something like that: a skelton in the closet. I can't bear to listen to the first album + don't even own a copy of the second. I do think the third has some interesting music on it, and it gets played once every year or two.

Looking for happy endings? Yes, why not. For what it's worth, I am much much happier now than when I made those records. Someone above mentions a my involvement with a Bjork-like co-worker...yes well we were married two years ago + are expecting our first child in June.

So, requisite warm fuzziness all 'round, and if you've ever enjoyed the music, wishing you continued enjoyment.

Still see Margaret at shows here in London but haven't seen JH for a long time, although M. and Mr. Hall keep me updated whenever I see them.

That what should be in between those quotations marks, but because the title of this cathar album has those angle brackets, ILM thinks it's a html tag. sorry

This should evolve into a UVS anecdote thread. Mine:

I would assume a majority of people my age (near-thirties) became aware of UVS via 120 Minutes. I didn't have a VCR in my room, so I'd program the one in the living room to record it, watch it in my room, note what songs I liked, and record them to audio cassette before school the next morning. The grainy "Mercy Seat" video, if I recall correctly, was followed - seamlessly - by the B52's "Channel Z" (which was the advance single for Cosmic Thing - that has to be one of the worst A&R decisions on record). I was...14 or 15, and pretty freaked out by Kurt's bangs and the distorted videotape, all very intense for someone burning out a copy of Eponymous while mowing lawns. UVS was part of a handful of late-80s gateway acts that pointed me down a better path, as important and memorable to my mind as The Cure or New Order. And for the record, I don't hear the Mary Chain thing at all! Haw.

I still smell gasoline, grass and burning leaves whenever I hear "Mercy Seat", and fear the impending image of Fred Schneider running across a field in slow motion, like a total jackass. A kiss and a slap.

Nice of you to pop in Mr Ralske.

7" flexi version of three stars that was in The Catalogue. says it's an exclusive mix but mine's still attached to the mag so i guess i've never heard it. and the freebie 4ad 7" that they gave away at records stores if you asked nicely. i got mine from Badlands in cheltenham about 2 hours after failing my driving test for the second time.

there's also a thing called amor.0+01, an ambient thing released under his own name - three long tracks and a video that i could never get my pc to play... (1999 sub rosa records)

not heard any cathars though...

andy

UVS - I'm absolutely amazed Kurt's embaraassed by the whole thing. I play UVS to selective friends who all love it and long to hear more. The tone of Kurt's voice, the oblique lyrics, the song structures and spotless arrangements leave me breathless. The album art and presentation reinforced a first class act.

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Stage/5901/index.html

kinda loving this Crash compilation. cost a small fortune but may even be worth it. Dumais was a very talented songwriter and a likably pitch-challenged singer. sad that he's no longer with us.

i hadn't made the Tangerine connection before! i do recall that album being v. tough going. may rate a revisit and reappraisal in benevolent afterglow of rekindled Crash love.

was Justine a covert Creation imprint?

Classic. Personally I go way back with Kurt as I have mentioned elsewhere already. He was a weird dude but still a genius.

I hear from some mutual friends that Kurt is now into some fine art shit now and I can't speak to that but UVS is some nice ass shit. Takes me right back to that day when I was the only one in NYC sportin one a their t-shirts!

It's funny but his record was like the #1 record of 1992 in CMJ and we are talking about it like it's a relic.

Fucking classic.

Classic!

God, I absolutely love The Mercy Seat. I remember seeing the video for it on some BBC2 programme when it came out (I think it was on SnubTV maybe). I've got the 12" and the album with the toothbrush on the cover in my attic, as soon as I move into a bigger place I'm going to buy a turntable JUST to play that 12".

"There's only one way to bring a new day..."

I still think Kurt's appearance earlier in this thread is the best out-of-nowhere cameo on ILX ever.

Only recently realized that he produced two of my favorite tracks on Lida Husik's "Joyride" album, and come to think of it they do sort of sound like UVS.

Ha ha, I got in some trouble for some of the things said on this thread.

! One wonders...

Only recently realized that he produced two of my favorite tracks on Lida Husik's "Joyride" album, and come to think of it they do sort of sound like UVS.

Have this album here somewhere, never realized either or listened to that one much, must investigate! (thx)

i just got all th crash eps and lps and flexis..what now?

listen to them?

wow, how funny that he posted here

Pleasant surprise: I just discovered the album "I Had Fun Tonight (Songs by Mark Dumais and Crash)" by Bobine which came out last year. Covers of a bunch of Crash stuff etc.

It misses Ralske's guitar, and does better on the jangly stuff than the rocky stuff, but it's pretty good. Vocals are steadier than Dumais, who had an iffy relationship with pitch. I'd still like to see someone else a little rockier (like, um, Kurt Ralske...not going to happen I know) re-record all the Crash stuff. This will do for now.

hey wow thanks for the tip about Joyride, I am a big Lida Husik fan but I don't have that one.

Also just noticed that there's a few Crash videos (rehearsals, etc.) up on youtube. Wow, never thought I'd see that.

"You can hurt me if you please
you know I'd do the same for you ..."

Funny, I just pulled the s/t cd out earlier in the week and it still sounds every bit as creepy and cool (and classic) as it ever did. I love the imagery - and it makes me think of something I read a long time ago in a fanzine that was called Sproggs, or Sprog that had a cover story interview with Kurt? (or I could be remembering the wrong things altogether) but in it he says something about the first album was a "great soundtrack for sharpening razor blades" while the second one "was made for counting out pills"

i should go digging in my old magazine stash to find the actual quote, but it was pretty great. and incredibly spot on.

also, this may sound like a question of the obvious, but The Mercy Seat is about heroin, right?

i mean i know what a real mercy seat is, but the references to blood flowing, warmth, etc is all like reading someone's talking about getting a fix

Ah, SNUB TV ...

Return of the Ralske. Well, sort of. He directed this new Kim Deal video:

http://vimeo.com/72002146

fairly safe to say i didn't used to 'get' UVS but i really dig the debut now

And a new interview!

http://thequietus.com/articles/13367-ultra-vivid-scene-kurt-ralske-interview

Great stuff there from Jon in doing the interview -- delves in deep to his many different projects and roots early on, this is probably the best accounting I've seen of the whole time!