Combining the run of early singles with more obscure later period tracks underlines the strength in depth that Wire had. This is pop art as art/pop and an exploration of the blank canvas of pop culture and how far that canvas can be stretched going from three minute constructs to ambient washes. The 7 single was always the ultimate artefact and statement with the A side being the band momentarily paused in time and distilled and freeze-framed into the forever with less than three minutes of electric sound. These sevens released from 1977 to the end of that decade signpost the bands remarkable development from their brilliantly monochromatic early phase to the textured complexity of the almost psychedelic unzipping of their sound and vision. In some ways the compilation of Nine Sevens onto a double album makes for quite a weird documentation of the band in this period. The first disc, to some extent, follows the script of a singles / greatest hits collection but the second one goes wildly off-piste and ends up somewhere quite far from where the collection started.

Track List

1. Side A 1 Mannequin
2. 2 Feeling Called Love
3. 3 12Xu
4. 4 I Am the Fly
5. 5 Ex-Lion Tamer
6. 6 Dot Dash *
7. 7 Options R *
8. Side B 8 Outdoor Miner (Single Version) *
9. 9 Practice Makes Perfect
10. 10 a Question of Degree *
11. 11 Former Airline *
12. 12 Map Ref. 41N 93W
13. Side C 1 Go Ahead *
14. 2 Our Swimmer *
15. 3 Midnight Bahnhof Caf *
16. 4 Second Length (Our Swimmer) *
17. 5 Catapult 30 *
18. Side D (154 Ep) 6 Song 1 *
19. 7 Get Down 1 + 2 *
20. 8 Lets Panic Later *
21. 9 Small Electric Piece *