“Nausea” is a Los Angeles punk classic by one of the greatest bands of West Coast punk’s golden age, X. What made X special, among many things, was the disjointed, haunting male-female interplay between singers Exene Cervenka and John Doe. Neither Cervenka and Doe were classically gorgeous singers (although Doe can get his croon on), and it was the cracking, edgy quality to how their voices blended (or didn’t) that gave them dark versimilitude of people talking about real-world angst. Ray Manzarek of the Doors produced X, and they shared the Doors’ quality of spooky, minor-chord confessionals coming from a scary place. As a song, too, “Nausea” was an instant punk contender—a simple droning bassline on which to hang Cervenka and Doe’s plaintive moans.

That Yacht have chosen to cover “Nausea” is another stroke of genius for the Portland-based duo, who released one of the best albums in ages, 2009’s See Mystery Lights, released on the mighty DFA label. Yacht is musician Jona Bechtolt, who brought vocalist Claire L. Evans on as a full collaborator on See Mystery Lights, and Evans immediately mades things more complex; Yacht’s synth pop got a hefty dose of vital gender subversion, much like Cervenka and Doe’s tightrope tension benefited X. Indeed, on Yacht’s cover of “Nausea,” Bechtolt and Evans keep things stripped down to just bass and eerie synths, the smoky, angular quality recalling Gang of Four, Pylon, the Raincoats and Bush Tetras—post-punkers who combined funky minimalism with the politics that exist between men and women. This layer gives Yacht’s cover an additional frisson—and did we mention it’s catchy as hell, too?