expect delay
It probably doesn’t need to be said out loud, but the ’80s were a weird time. In the ’70s, Wire were the genre-busting art school firebrands redefining punk, and on their second resurrection in the early 21st century, they were the angry elder statesmen of art rock. But their second incarnation, where they absorbed the […]
10:20 is a curious entry in Wire’s discography, especially since it’s their last release to date of “new” music but actually is a lot of old music, made new again, but not at the same time. This might sound confusing, but is rather par for the course for an act that as much as they’re […]
A new band with an impeccable pedigree, MEMORIALS is the duo of Matthew Sims – he of It Hugs Back and Wire – and Verity Sussman of Electrelane. Though the two had collaborated off the record for some time, their first officially released output comes in the form of soundtracks for a pair of documentary […]
When I started up this blog I was afraid it’d turn into a kind of Wire fansite, so obsessed was I with exploring their expansive back catalog. Well I’m no less a fan these days, but they do make up a smaller percentage of my overall listening. But that’s no excuse for having not done […]
Object 47 – so named because it was the 47th entry in Wire’s official discography – came at an interesting time in the band’s existence. Coming five years after Send and the Read & Burn EPs heralded their return and relevance in the 21st century, it found the band in unknown territory with founding guitarist […]
Wire’s penchant for revisiting and reconstructing old material is a topic I’ve meant to go deeper into for a while, but it’s not happening here or now. Instead, a selection from their latest official release, which is a wide release of a former limited release which was a re-release of a decades-old unofficial release. Not […]
I haven’t dug into the Rockpalast archives in a while, so here’s one that coincides with my re-immersing myself in the Wire discography (I took a breather for a little while, there). This February, 1979 performance is notable because it was the source for the band’s 2004 live CD/DVD set On The Box 1979. Chronologically, […]
Saluting of one of the most satisfying combinations of melody and gibberish, “Kidney Bingos”, the single from Wire’s 1988 album A Bell Is A Cup… Until It Is Struck. In a 1988 interview with McGill University radio station CKUT, Colin Newman offered these thoughts on the song: “There’s always been a very strong pop element […]
Fact: the first three Wire albums are unimpeachable and if they had stayed broken up after releasing 154 in 1979, their place in music history would still be assured. But they didn’t stay broken up, and it shouldn’t be overlooked that their musical output since reuniting in 1987 is also very, very, very good. Their […]
Something I realized as I started to watch this video is that despite hearing this song just shy of a million times, I have never seen the video. Maybe not so surprising considering that Elastica’s self-titled debut came out in 1995, when I was in university with no access to cable TV let alone MuchMusic. […]
