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Wire announce new member and new releases

Wire are fresh off some European dates and have officially announced a new member, a forthcoming album, the imminent release of Send Ultimate, a rare "unplugged" session, and the Legal Bootleg Series: newly available archive material. All of this in their latest newsletter from PinkFlag.

from the latest newsletter:

Wire 4.2: The New Cycle

This year Wire has been hard at work on a set of recorded material that will become the band’s 12th Studio album. We are aiming for a release date of the physical version of the (as yet unnamed) album on the first practical date in January 2011. We may go with the digital version slightly earlier.

The work has gone through various stages which have included taking some of it on the road in a series of dates during May and June this year so some may already be familiar with titles such as Spuds, Up From Above & Moreover through the shows themselves and also through the various live streaming of the set from this year's Primavera Festival in Barcelona.

Some will also know that we have now bid a fond farewell to Margaret Fiedler-McGinnis as our live "extra" guitarist and are now augmented by Matt Simms who will stay with us for the duration of this cycle.

Rouen

There seems to be a general opinion that we have already built up a head of steam with this line-up and set; however, in spite of the fact that we will have some exciting announcements to make about dates later this year and into 2011, the focus of creative attention this summer will remain with the album.



Send Ultimate & the Legal bootleg Series

Send Ult

While Wire's creative energies this year are very much orientated towards the future we are not neglecting to continue to review and augment Pinkflag’s offering for new and old fans alike. First up is a remake/remodel of Send which has been out of print for over a year.

WIRE SEND Ultimate (2 CD)

Pinkflag (pf60) – July 5th 2010

Send Ultimate is an archaeology of Wire in the studio between 2000 and 2003, as the band worked on new music for the first time in a decade. This retooled edition of Send gives fresh insight into an exciting chapter for Wire, by expanding the frame around the album and providing a larger context with rare and previously unheard material.

This includes both sides of the "12 Times U" vinyl-only collectors' item (the "12XU" remixes that catalysed Wire's Send-era burst of creativity); unreleased curiosities such as "DJ Fuckoff," an exercise in hyperkinetic dancefloor lunacy; alternate versions of numbers originating in this period that subsequently appeared on 2007's Read & Burn 03; and the tracks from the first two (out-of-print) Read & Burn EPs that were omitted from the original Send.

DISC 1
1. In The Art Of Stopping
2. Mr Marx's Table
3. Being Watched
4. Comet
5. The Agfers Of Kodack
6. Nice Streets Above (Full Version)
7. Spent
8. Read & Burn
9. You Can't Leave Now
10. Half Eaten
11. 99.9

DISC 2
1. I Don't Understand
2. Trash/Treasure
3. Raft Ants
4. Germ Ship
5. 1st Fast
6. Artificial Gravity
7. DJ Fuckoff
8. 12 Times U
9. Our Time (minimal mix)
10. Desert Diving (alt mix)
11. 12 Times X

The double album also features sleeve notes by Pink Flag author Wilson Neate and a track-by-track commentary by all the main participants.

Those who bought the original release of Send from our Mail Order received a CD of WIRE - 14 Sept 2002 Metro, Chicago (pfb 002). That edition has long since sold out; however, not only have we made provision to add a digital copy of this long sought-after item to mail order sales of Send Ultimate but also we have badged it as part of the Legal Bootleg series which is also launched in July 2010.

Metro

"Send:Ultimate" is priced at £10.99 from our Mail Order the additional WIRE - 14 Sept 2002 Metro, Chicago (pfb 002) is priced at £1.50 when bought with any version of "Send:Ultimate". This means the combined price for the 3 albums is £12.49... bargain!

 

Wire legal bootleg series

BradfordAstoriaEdinburgh

Over the years, many Wire concerts have been recorded, circulated and traded by ardent fans. But with the unexpected success of the 1979 Rockpalast concert (released as Wire: On The Box 1979), and subsequent requests from Wire fans for the band to release more from the archives, Pinkflag has been hard at work on a project to make available live material, from the highest possible quality source material, remastered and sympathetically presented...

Pinkflag proudly presents The Wire Legal Bootleg series. Curated by long-time Wire fan Mark Bursa, the series aims to make available the very best Wire gigs, for an affordable price, and with both new fans and avid collectors in mind.

Each gig is available individually, in digital format, for £8.99. Fans can save money by purchasing 'batches' of three gigs, for £24.99, which include one from each decade Wire performed live in. However, for the biggest Wire fans, we're offering a series subscription for the special price of £66.99; this subscription will not only include recordings of nine classic Wire gigs, but also a DVD (including postage) of Wire's second gig of the 1980s, at Bloomsbury Theatre.

Bloomsbury

The first 3 releases will be -

WIRE - 25 October 1978 Bradford University (pfb 701)
Chairs Missing meets proto-154. Raw versions of familiar songs

Indirect Enquiries
Men 2nd
Lowdown
On Returning
Being Sucked In
I Feel Mysterious Today
The Other Window
A Mutual Friend
Former Airline
Mercy
Stepping Off Too Quick
Strange
Another The Letter
Sand In My Joints
French Film Blurred
I Should Have Known Better
Practice Makes Perfect
Reuters
106 Beats That

WIRE - 21 July 1988 Astoria, London (pfb 801)
Wire in full 80s pomp!

The Queen Of Ur
In Vivo
Kidney Bingos
The Finest Drops
Silk Skin Paws
German Shepherds
A Public Place
It's A Boy
The Offer
Eardrum Buzz
Boiling Boy
Drill
Ahead
Over Theirs

WIRE - 08 Dec 2000 Queen's Hall, Edinburgh (pfb 001)
The crucial 00s gig, with the first airing of new material and reworkings of old classics

Zoom
Heartbeat
Ally In Exile
Germ Ship
Boiling Boy
He Knows
Advantage In Height
Lowdown
Another The Letter
12XU
Pink Flag
Drill

This series, which will only ever be available in it's entirety through Pinkflag Mail Order will continue to be released in sets of 3 at regular intervals to the end of the current run each set containing a 70's, and '80's and a '00's item. Better source material continues to come to light and we'll always go with the strongest avaiable but up for inclusion are superior versions of - 29 Feb 1980 Electric Ballroom, London // 07 June 1985 MOMA, Oxford * // *28 Feb 2004 Club Quattro, Osaka // 10 Nov 1979 Jeanetta Cochrane Theatre, London // 1st Nov 1987 Town & Country Club, London // 19 April 2002 Fleece & Firkin, Bristol.

An absolute must for every Wire fan!

 

Video

As always when Wire take to the stage these days there will be plenty who will film and upload to YouTube but surely the strangest video of recent weeks to be published this way was the ‘unplugged’ version of Vivid Riot of Red// Up To the Sun performed by Graham and Colin in the Rayban tent at Primavera. With its usual precision Wire (or at least two-thirds of it) took the request for an ‘unplugged’ performance quite literally, using only the sound of their own voices! The result is a rendition of a once classic encore best suited to a hushed and darkened theatre stage in somewhat different circumstances!

Rayban

By way of contrast here's a home made video for One of Us featuring world war 2 footage and another for Patient Flees featuring some moody driving sequences.

 

And finally

This newsletter and the website are complimentary resources. To keep abreast of Wire and and all its doings, we recommend checking Pinkflag.com regularly as well as being signed up to this mailing list.

All the best,

Pinkflag