Wire: special initiative for Record Store Day. Watch the video for "23 Years Too Late (24 Years Later Edit)"

Wire have announced an expanded reissue of “Read & Burn 03”, now titled “Read & Burn 03+”, for Record Store Day 2026, out via Pinkflag. The record, originally released in 2007, is being reissued with additional material and, for the first time, in a complete vinyl edition.

Ahead of the release, the band has put out a video for "23 Years Too Late", directed by Malcolm Boyle using archival footage and photographs. The track occupies an odd place in the group's catalogue: it began as a radical reworking of "Dot Dash", initially transformed into "Dip Flash" during a 2002 London event tied to Iain Sinclair's London Orbital project. The title stems from a coincidence that emerged during that year's European tour, when several dates mirrored those of a tour cancelled in 1979: "23 years too late", indeed. In 2007 the piece was reworked into its definitive form, with lyrics drawn from Graham Lewis's tour diary and a hybrid structure of electronics and live performance, one that's difficult to replicate with a conventional line-up. According to Colin Newman, the track is unique less for its length than for its genesis and its relationship with the band's most devoted fans: a rare meeting point between the group's inner history and audience reception.

"Read & Burn 03+" also stands as the last "non-historic" work by the original line-up (Newman, Lewis, Bruce Gilbert, Robert Grey). The new edition adds three tracks to the original four and offers multiple versions of "23 Years Too Late", differing across vinyl, CD and digital formats.

Stylistically, the record documents a phase in which the band, already more than thirty years into its career, returns to a leaner, more direct synthesis, recovering the minimal immediacy of its early days without giving up its forward-looking stance. Tracks like "No Warning Given" and "Desert Diving" show this balance between deconstruction and song form, while the long opening track condenses spoken word, electronics and abrasive guitars into a single architecture.

More than a simple reissue, “Read & Burn 03+” works as a rereading of the band's own archive: peripheral material that, reassembled, still sounds contemporary. A typically Wire move, one that treats the past as material still very much alive.

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