Space, particularly inner headspace was big news in the early eighties. All those derelict inner city landscapes represented both physical and mental wastelands. The most iconic music of the era serves as a map to those empty spaces rebuilt by flickering minds in stranger, more emancipated times: World Of Echo, Unknown Pleasures, Dare, Remain In Light, Computer World. It's become a cliche to describe these records as strange documents from a lost brave new world but that's what they are. Here are some postcards from the heart of downtown.

Manhattan's Liquid Liquid the quartet of Scott Hartley Richard McGuire, Salvatore Principato...