Wire – “Nocturnal Koreans”

Owen Richards

Wire – “Nocturnal Koreans”

Owen Richards

Prolific, longevous UK postpunk quartet Wire have come with seminal music for almost four decades now, and it is a marvel that they still sound ahead of their time now. Perhaps even more incredibly, they are showing no signs of slowing down. They’re gearing up to wreck some shit yet again with their upcoming album Nocturnal Koreans, and set off the roll-out with the album’s title track. It’s more of that classic but somehow novel sound that we’ve come to know. Deep bass and ringing electric guitars drive the song, as Colin Newman’s subdued, cooing vocals cut through the density of those guitar layers and heavy drums.

The new album finds the band looking to switch things up a bit. It is inspired by sessions from last year’s self-titled LP, but they are approaching their music in a more refined way. Newman told Pitchfork about the creative process for the new body of work:

The WIRE album was quite respectful of the band, and Nocturnal Koreans is less respectful of the band—or, more accurately, it’s the band being less respectful to itself — in that it’s more created in the studio, rather than recorded basically as the band played it, which was mostly the case with WIRE. A general rule for this record was: any trickery is fair game, if it makes it sound better.

Perhaps the trickery is the source of the novelty on “Nocturnal Koreans,” though it seems they are pulling from an everlasting well at this point in their careers. Listen.

Nocturnal Koreans is out later this year on Pink Flag.

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