Curated by
Porcupine Tree
guitarist
Steven Wilson
, the four-disc compilation
Intrigue: Progressive Sounds in UK Alternative Music 1979-89
tackles the entirety of the 1980s with the mission of exposing the strangest, most inventive, and most abstract sounds coming out of the United Kingdom in a decade where music could often feel sterile or homogenized. That's hardly the case with the 58 tracks
Wilson
presents here, all of which are miles away from the blandness of the charts and commercial trends of the '80s and focused more on post-punk, new wave, art rock, goth rock, synth pop, and all imaginable intersections thereof.
Intrigue
offers a fantastic primer for independent music happening at a time when bands like
U2
or
Tears for Fears
were what most people considered edgy. The comp kicks off with an especially moody
Wire
track, and quickly follows with submissions from
Public Image Limited
,
Magazine
Gang of Four
This Heat
, and the like.
includes updated mixes of his own making with tracks like
XTC
's "Complicated Game" and
Robert Fripp and the League of Gentlemen
's "Cognitive Dissonance."
makes space for many different shades of sound that grew out of post-punk, ranging from the haunted ska of
the Specials
' "Ghost Town" to
Joy Division
's slow-moving funeral march "The Eternal" to
Kate Bush
's theatrical
Hounds of Love
fever dream "Waking the Witch." There's nothing but highlights throughout the several hours of deep cuts and more familiar tracks gathered on
, and the entire collection flows well regardless of the various wild directions it goes in. If
's aim was to showcase the excitement and unconventional thinking that existed in the shadows of banal mainstream sounds throughout the '80s,
accomplishes that goal and then some. ~ Fred Thomas