(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Ultra Vivid Scene is the moniker of Kurt Ralske, a New Yorker who moved to London during the �hot� years of the psychedelic revival.

First revealed by the EP She Screamed (4AD) with a sound that was both frenetically danceable and eerily unsettling�somewhere between Suicide and My Bloody Valentine�Ralske reached an elegant form of dance-rock with his self-titled 1988 album: perverse and anguished melodies � la Bolan, with dizzying (Crash) or serenade-like (Lynn-Marie) choruses, are combined with sophisticated arrangements that recycle surf, folk-rock, pop, psychedelia, and blues-rock phonemes (tremolo, jingle-jangle, small organs, music boxes, etc.) in a danceable electro context. His main model, however, is the vain psychedelic pop of the Jesus & Mary Chains and My Bloody Valentine, which triumphs (in its own way) on Mercy Seat, a tour de force of searing distortion and martial cadences. Everything is lulled into a kind of Sister Ray-style hypnosis stripped to its essentials, an ineffable boogie played sotto voce.

Ralske�s pop vein overflows on the following Joy 1967-1990 (1990), recorded with a full band. From the tender Lightning to the dreamy Staring At The Sun, through the power-pop of Three Stars and the medieval folk of Praise The Low, Ralske keeps offering colorful arrangements of the same song, culminating in the perfect melodic progression of Special One (essentially Alex Chilton�s September Gurls). These are little whispered cantilenas, immersed in Paisley Underground languor; only It Happens Every Time can truly be called psychedelic. It is no coincidence that Ralske ends up referencing Cat Stevens (Extraordinary echoes Wild World, and The Kindest Cut displays the same orchestral nervousness).

The 1992 album, Rev, instead regresses to the most unreal sparsity (without electronics). Candida and Mirror To Mirror rely on the qualities of melody and on imperceptible touches that continue to replicate 1960s stereotypes. But the mood is sterile to the point of boredom, exposing the limitations of Ralske�s method. A single Crash is not enough to justify a career.

After a long career as composer of film soundtracks and avant-electronic music under the moniker Cathars, notably Amorpheus (Miau-Miau, 1997), Kurt Ralske finally began releasing albums under his own name. Both Kyrie Eleison (Miau-Miau, 1997) Amor 0+01 (SubRosa, 2001) are refined examples of computer-composed and samples-based ambient music.