Wire release previously unheard version of 1978 track French Film Blurred

Wire have released a previously-unheard demo version of their 1978 album track French Film Blurred.

The version is taken from the special edition CD book of the upcoming Chairs Missing reissue, due to be released on May 18. The band announced they'd be reissuing their first three albums – Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154 – earlier this year.

Wire frontman Colin Newman said of the track: “I liked the text so I gave it a new, more thoughtful, slightly off kilter, tune. There was a palpable sense of progress.

"It was as if the new material, as it increased in volume and ambition, was literally pushing anything that sounded backwards looking (and by April 1978, that meant anything that sounded like it belonged on Pink Flag) out the door. Thus the story of version one of French Film Blurred carries a strong element of the story of Wire.

"Progress is all. There’s nothing wrong with the tune. It’s a perfectly acceptable piece of music that does sound like a development from the material on Pink Flag and is in its own way quite charming, but is then utterly eclipsed, in terms of style and sophistication, by the version that eventually turned up on Chairs Missing.”

Listen to the demo version in full below.

Special edition CD book reissues – including 80-page hardback books – of Pink Flag, Chairs Missing and 154 will be released on May 18 via Pinkflag records. Standard vinyl and CD reissues will follow on June 22, and will mimic the same artwork and packaging of the original issues.

Briony is the Editor in Chief of Louder and is in charge of sorting out who and what you see covered on the site. She started working with Metal Hammer, Classic Rock and Prog magazines back in 2015 and has been writing about music and entertainment in many guises since 2009. Her favourite-ever interviewee is either Billy Corgan or Kim Deal. She is a big fan of cats, Husker Du and pizza.