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 ...
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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. Wilson 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." Intrigue 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 Intrigue, and the entire collection flows well regardless of the various wild directions it goes in. If Wilson's aim was to showcase the excitement and unconventional thinking that existed in the shadows of banal mainstream sounds throughout the '80s, Intrigue accomplishes that goal and then some. ~ Fred Thomas, Rovi
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