WIRE : ‘Not About To Die’ (pinkflag)

Wire remaster and officially release what was previously a bootleg collection of demos for their 1978/79 Harvest albums ‘Chairs Missing’ and ‘154’ – ‘a fascinating snapshot of Wire in transition’ now sounds more like a ‘classic lost album’, says Ged Babey.  

This is of course, quite brilliant. The first three original Wire albums on Harvest are pretty much perfection. So demos from the middle of that period are going to be eminently fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable, if you are ‘a fan’…

Herein are embryonic versions of classic songs such as ‘French Film (Blurred)’, ‘Used To’ and ‘Being Sucked In Again’, that the group would develop considerably for their epochal 1978 album ‘Chairs Missing’. Later demos such as ‘Once Is Enough’, ‘On Returning’ and ‘Two People In A Room’ would surface in radically altered form on 1979’s ‘154’.  Some songs, such as ‘The Other Window’, are virtually unrecognisable from their later iterations. But the biggest prizes here may well be the numerous tracks that were destined to be omitted from Wire’s later studio albums…

The earliest songs, from ‘the 4th Demo’ are the ones with the Pink Flag pace and brevity and have retained every joule of their energy despite materialising in a different century.

Even though all of these songs have appeared on ‘expanded editions’ of reissues of Pink Flag and Chairs Missing, and in the case of the brilliant Culture Vultures, the Peel sessions album, collected together they feel like a ‘lost album’ rather than substandard offcuts or works-in-progress.

One thing kind of leapt out at me: the way the guitar sounds ‘clean’ and free of a battery of effects-pedals like many a ‘post-punk’ band nowadays.

Highlights include ‘Motive’, which, whilst obviously still in an embryonic state, has an undeniable power. Robert Grey’s drumming is crisp and minimal, and Graham Lewis’s bass runs are particularly ear-catching.

What caught my ear was what sounds like a lyrical reference to ‘sonic chess’ – which is highly appropriate for a band in the process of inventing what tends to get called ‘Math Rock’.

Despite its distinctly un-Wire title, ‘Love Ain’t Polite’ is also something of a gem. Bruce Gilbert’s guitar is razor sharp and Colin Newman’s vocal is especially strong, with his delivery of the ‘bah-ba- bah-ba’s’ providing an irresistible energy and charm.

(I’m not deliberately disagreeing with the press release by the way…but..) Love Ain’t Polite actually sounds more like a power-pop band trying desperately to sound like Wire and I’m not surprised it was dropped.

Meanwhile, the track which gives the album its title ‘Not About To Die’, officially known as “Stepping Off Too Quick” is alive with confident energy, and possesses what Newman half jokingly calls “The best intro to any song ever”. The intro is so good in fact, that it takes up a third of the song’s entire time frame.

Ignorance No Plea later refined and re-named I Should Have Known Better is a beautifully mannered version and prime, definitive Wire.  Clipped, precise, odd. There is something very Asperger’s about Wire: and I don’t mean that at all unkindly or disparagingly – just as an observation on the way they seem ‘high-functioning’, different. obsessive and self-contained. Like Greta says it is their superpower. (I’m talking about Wire as an artistic unit not the individual members of the band needless to say).

I have always liked the way Wire referred to the song words as ‘the text’ rather than ‘lyrics’. It points to the fact that they are detached analysis rather than an emotional narrative.  You could say that Wire have a scientific approach which could be summed up by the John Cooper Clarkes line Speaking as an outsider, What do you think of the human race?  Wire’s humour is bone dry though and not easy to find as their aesthetic has always been to keep a very, very straight face. Wire eschewed levity.  Being Wire was, and still is a serious business.

Not About To Die, oddly would serve as a great introduction to Wire, should there be such a thing as serious music-fans who have never actually heard the first-3-LP’s.   Wire’s importance and greatness is well established though and they are rightly revered.

These properly mastered tracks have never been available on vinyl before, and they provide an opportunity to hear Wire at a point in their development when they were bursting with fresh ideas and a will to communicate them. This is post-punk at its very finest.

Can’t argue with that.

All words Ged Babey except press release content in italics.

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