Immersion: WTF?? 12" wm60LP / CD wm60CD / Digital wm60D
Album: 26 September 2025 | pre-order here | LP on bio vinyl
Single: ‘Use It Don’t Lose It’ | 28 July 2025 (on all streaming platforms) | Watch the video on YouTube
Vinyl
A: 1. Defiance / 2. Use It Don't Lose It / 3. It's A Long
Way To Brooklyn / 4. Timeline
Vinyl B :5. How To Be / 6.
Change Of Use / 7. Push The Rock / 8. On The Longest Day
What the f*ck?? What the f*cking
f*ck??
It’s the only realistic response to these dark, divisive and dangerous times. How do you react? How do you feel? How do you soundtrack?
Immersion is the project of post-punk musical architects Colin Newman (Wire) and Malka Spigel (Minimal Compact) and Matt Schulz (Holy Fuck, Savak & Lake Ruth). Since the pandemic, Immersion has been mainly working on their Nanocluster collaborations but they have now re-engaged with the core project after a UK and USA tour gave them a shot of musical urgency and lyrical immediacy.
The crafted creativity of the core unit has seen their previous projects honed down in their studio set-up but the magic of the live moment sparked a new necessity to the sound. It sees the four instrumentals and the four vocal pieces of the album created with an added energy and a connection to the shared hopes and fears of the band, its audience and the wider community. It musically catches a moment reacting to the apocalyptic madness of these times and trying to come to terms with it. The songs snapshot these uncertain days adding another layer of humanity to the music and another level of ‘what the f*ck??’.
If the Nanocluster project is about collaboration then Immersion in 2025 is a response to where humanity finds itself in the second decade of the 21st century. It reacts to not only that relentless rhetoric of these times but also how we as humans should respond. Music is the message, the medium, the massage and the moment. This song collection manages to combine the unease with hope, minimally hypnotic songwriting with taut melodies and inventiveness with groove.
The lead-off track released on 28 July is ‘Use It Don’t Lose It’, which they describe as “An expression of us both together, saying the same thing for ourselves and for others. The words are so direct they need no explanation. Anyone could join in with the chanting!” The album will follow in September 2025 and there will be UK dates later in the year.
‘Thank you for your attention to this matter!’
JOHN ROBB, Manchester, July 2025
UK 2025 tour dates
Sat 30 Aug: Woodbridge, Festival of Arts &
Music
Fri 03 Oct: Brighton, The Actors – Late L(a)unch in conversation with
John Robb & album playback
Wed 29 Oct: Leeds, The Attic
Thur 30 Oct: Glasgow, MONO
Fri 31 Oct: Manchester, Kamera
Sat 01 Nov: Coventry, Just Dropped In
Mon 03 Nov: London, Cafe OTO
Thur 04 Dec: Brighton, Alphabet
More dates to be announced. immersionhq.uk always carries a gig list with ticket links as does Immersion's Spotify profile.
T-shirts
We have a small quantity of Nanocluster Vol.3 T-shirts from the 2025 US tour. All made from ethical cotton. When they’re gone, they’re gone!
Also, check out the T-shirt store for Immersion, Githead, Colin Newman and Swimming in Sound efforts!
Nanocluster
In spite of Immersion re-engaging with the ‘core project’, Nanocluster collaborations continue. Each one has a different pace and a different flavour. Tangible results will always be announced here first but please also follow Immersion’s social media or those of Colin & Malka, and check out Swimming in Sound! See below for links.
Meanwhile, we are still running a Nanocluster deal on Vol.1 & Vol.2, activated at the check-out stage in the shop. We also have limited stock of Nanocluster Vol. 3 on CD.
Stock in + deep catalogue
Dealing with physical stock is a complex business. An item can be out of stock in one location but not elsewhere, or a small number of items may be discovered in an unexpected place! But the bottom line is some items marked as being out of stock in swim ~’s mail-order shops just need re-stocking. Below is a list of items that are in the process of being re-stocked, which may be marked as pre-orders until warehouse orders can be fulfilled.
We have also created a Spotify playlist with tracks from these and other ‘deep’ swim ~ releases as an intro for newcomers and a refresher for anyone already familiar with them. It’s an open playlist so please feel free to add your own favourite swim ~ tracks!
Githead: Art Pop (CD album) – wm39CD (2007)
Formed initially as a one-off for the swim~ 10th birthday bash in April 2004, Githead quickly established a life and voice of its own. Its ‘all star’ line-up – comprising Wire’s Colin Newman, Robin Rimbaud (Scanner) + Malka Spigel & Max Franken from Minimal Compact – may have led many to presume its life would be short, indulgent and acrimonious. Far from it. Githead from the outset has always been a band determined to carve out its own identity and to refine its vision through its work. And it remains so!
Githead: Landing (CD album) – WM43 (2009)
Landing marked Githead’s fourth release (and third album) since the band’s inception. In a short career that to that date had boasted more 5-star reviews than most bands have had hot dinners, Landing was at the time regarded as Githead's most accomplished recording.
Immersion: 2nd Immersion (12" vinyl EP) – vwm12 (1995)
Full on ’90s Immersion, packed full of breakbeats, drum & bass and techno. This one’s vinyl only.
Immersion: Immersion Remixes Vol. 1 (12" vinyl EP) – vwm4.1 (1994)
Remixes of tracks from Immersion’s debut album, Oscillating, by Mark Gage (Vapourspace), Intens, Trawl (Scanner), Craig Wharton. Vinyl only and the first in a series later compiled on Full Immersion.
Immersion: Living On An Island (10" vinyl EP) – vwm52 (2016)
The second 10", after Analogue Creatures, from Immersion's restart in 2016. Vinyl only and later compiled on to the Analogue Creatures Living On An Island CD. The two 10"s are the only vinyl versions of those tracks.
Immersion: Sleepless (CD Album) – wm55 (2018)
Considered "a logical development from Analogue Creatures and a huge leap forwards" - Without the backdrop of it the Nanocluster collaborations would have been much more difficult. Contains the band's first recorded collboration with drummer Matt Schulz.
Immersion: Low Impct – wm12 (1999)
The last album in Immersion's first cycle and named for a style of architecture that blends with the landscape. It was initially conceived as a sound work for an instillation at Dublin's Museum of Fine Art. The album is a beatless homage to the Korg-MS10, the core instrument in Immersion's armoury. While Immersion has strayed far from this album, you will find echoes of this work in everything Immersion has done since.
Oracle: Tree (CD album) – wm2 (1995)
Oracle were Samy Birnbach (Minimal Compact, DJ Morpheus) Malka Spigel (Minimal Compact, Immersion) and Colin Newman (Wire, Immersion) and had been working towards this project's completion since 1989. This was the project's sole album release.
Oracle: Oscillating / Earth (12" vinyl EP) – vwm1 (1994)
An oddity. The very first Swim - vinyl release. It's actually immersion under two made-up names, remixing Oracle – because we could!
Silo: Alloy (CD album) – Wm29 (2001) Silo: Instar (CD album) – wm19 (1998)
Two groundbreaking albums from Danish trio Silo. At the time we said: "Ostensibly a rock band with a grounding in everything from Metallica to Helmet, these three Danes have been subverted and seduced by the post–rock sensibilities of Tortoise and their many followers and the heady possibilities of digital manipulation to a point where they are both a rock band in actuality and a rock band inside a computer." They remain unique.
Various Artists: Swim Team #1 (CD album) – Wm30 (2001) Various Artists: Swim Team #2 (CD album) – wm33 (2002)
Featuring tracks from albums swim ~ released during the period and tracks (and artists) unreleased elsewhere, these two samplers - now only available in vanishingly small quantities on CD – remain both an introduction to the label in the late 1990s and early 2000s and an act of curation.
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Facebook: colinewman /malka.spigelnewman /immersionHQ / Nanocluster / ColinNewman /MalkaSpigel.MayaNewman / githead /Wir
Instagram: swimhq / mayanewman / immersion_hq
Web: www.swimminginsound.com / www.immersionhq.uk / www.slackcity.org.uk
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