Wire have rescheduled the release of 10:20, an upcoming collection of "stray" tracks, and shared a track from the album, ‘The Art of Persistence’, which you can hear above.
Originally due to be released on April 18 as part of Record Store Day, the closure of record shops around the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic meant that Record Store Day didn’t go ahead. The album will now receive a full general release on June 19 via Wire’s own pinkflag label instead.
‘The Art of Persistence”s origins lie in Wire reconvening at the turn of the millennium following a break for much of the ’90s. It was previously only available as a rehearsal room run-through on deleted EP The Third Day and as a live version on bootleg album Recycling Sherwood Forest. Now, the song receives the full studio treatment as part of 10:20.
Some of the tracks on 10:20 date back to Wire’s earlier days as a band in the ’80s. "These are recordings of pieces that couldn’t be accommodated on regular albums," explains a press release, which adds that it also features "compositions that – following their original studio recording – evolved substantially through live performance, and so deserved a new life on record."
10:20 comes just a few months on from Wire’s last studio album, Mind Hive. Read tQ’s review of Mind Hive here as well as our January Black Sky Thinking feature assessing the influence of the Beatles on Wire.
