Since COVID stopped Wire’s 2020 tour in support of Mind Hive in its tracks, there doesn’t seem to have even been the discussion of the band returning to any kind of ongoing activity. Colin Newman has kept busy with Immersion, Matthew Sims has a new project in Memorials, and Graham Lewis put out his first solo record in 2024.
The band has stayed active in the archival market, at least, often using Record Store Day as an excuse to put something out. And, not surprisingly for a band that has been consistently iterative on their past throughought their career, they mostly avoid the reissue/cash grab trap by making the release interesting, if not important.
For this year’s RSD event, they’re once again going back to their third act opening salvo, the Read & Burn EP series. I’ve previously tried to map out the evolution of the material that first appeared on 2002’s Read & Burn 01 and 2003’s Read & Burn 02 – cherry-picked for 2003’s Send, restructured for PF456 Redux that same year, and restored and reissued in 2021 for PF456 Deluxe (which got its own blog post). Mentioned in passing in those pieces was the long-delayed third part of the series, Read & Burn 03, which wasn’t part of those projects on account of only being released in 2007.
It gets the spotlight now, however, just in time for Record Store Day 2026. Those who line up on April 18 will get a chance at Read & Burn 03+, which appends three more tracks to the original four. The official statement around the release reads:
The original ep was the last non-historic release by the original wire line up of colin newman, graham lewis, bruce gilbert & robert grey and has never been properly released on vinyl.
While some of the tracks originated as part of the 2021-2022 sessions that gave forth send, others have a more storied history. “23 years too late” actually started life as a highly transformed cover of the 70’s wire single “dot dash” – performed under the name “dip flash” as part of iain sinclair’s london orbital, a night at the barbican london on 25th october 2022, celebrating london’s m25 motorway (aka the orbital). the never previously released piece in its original form is included as an additional track. meanwhile “desert diving” actually started life as a version of the chairs missing track “heartbeat” as performed live at the garage, london during wire’s series of concerts there in may 2000.The original version of “our time” and an alternate mix of “desert diving” are the other additional tracks.
Wire / Read & Send 03+ @ Record Store Day
Louder Than War has taken it upon themselves to dig deeper into the origins and versions of each track, as all good Wire trainspotters should:
Post punk legends Wire announce special Record Store Day release @ Louder Than War
The release comes with a new video for opening track “23 Years To Late” comprised of archival band footage collected for the forthcoming documentary People In A Film. The song also comes with a mini-essay from Colin Newman about the track’s origins:
As Wire’s song “Dot Dash” was also motorway themed we thought it amusing for it to be based on a “version” of that piece renamed “Dip Flash”. I was set the brief to come up with something which ticked those boxes. Luckily the outro of the original 1978 recording of “Dot Dash” had a little loop-able section which combined with a Casio MT-65 (80’s home mini keyboard) lo-fi chords, riff & drums formed the basis of the piece.
We performed it live with me running the sequencer parts, including my voice intoning the original text to Dot Dash, while the rest of the band played along in the less is more minimalistic spirit of Wire. Graham distorted & effected his voice, Bruce added classic rhythmic pulse while Rob added sound effects via an Ocotopad. This was the only occasion the piece was performed live and indeed the only occasion on which Wire ever performed in this mode.
Colin Newman, Wire
Some words about 23 Years Too Late
