Pitchfork

We would never accuse Wire of resembling Phish. In fact, we may have signed a piece of paper to that effect during Pitchfork's last loyalty purge (on Tuesday). But for the first time, we are ever so slightly tempted.

Following last year's Wire On The Box: 1979, the band's own label, Pinkflag, will soon release a second archival CD/DVD package from the other end of the band's career (i.e. this one). The Scottish Play: 2004 portrays two very recent performances filmed in contrasting styles, covering most of the band's Read & Burn/Send repertoire. Most of the DVD comes from a show at the Triptych Festival in Scotland last April, filmed by artist Tom Gidley, whose goal was to "deliberately [exclude] the usual rock music celebration of place and time, instead concentrating on giving the viewer the closest of contact with a band often misrepresented as enigmatic, cold and distant." Hard to say exactly what that means, although given Wire's long-standing relationship with the conceptual-art community, presumably it's not just code for "lots of shots right up Colin Newman's nostrils". Well, hopefully.

And speaking of those artists, the set's other component is footage from Flag:Burning, a one-shot 2003 performance where Wire performed dwarfed by video art constructed by avant-garde theater designer Es Devlin. The Scottish Play's accompanying CD will have all the audio from the Triptych show, but none of the Flag:Burning performances. So:

>> Triptych Festival (CD and DVD)
01 99.9
02 Germ Ship
03 Mr. Marx's Table
04 1st Fast
05 Read & Burn
06 The Agfers of Kodack
07 Comet
08 In the Art of Stopping
09 Spent
10 I Don't Understand
11 Strange
12 106 Beats That
13 Surgeon's Girl
14 Pink Flag

>> Flag:Burning (DVD only)
01 1st Fast
02 Comet
03 Spent
04 I Don't Understand

We can't tell you when you'll get your hands on this two-disc Wire feast, because... we don't know. It's finished, but Pinkflag discovered that many of the audio discs in the initial shipment were faulty, and postponed setting a release date until they know what's up. Expect something soon, though.