5 Records with Immersion’s Colin Newman and Malka Spigel

Colin Newman and Malka Spigel have made careers out of pushing boundaries. Newman fronted the pioneering post-punk band Wire, and Spigel played bass and sang in the criminally overlooked group Minimal Compact. The two then formed Githead and, more recently, Immersion, a dreamy electronic outfit centered around a revolving door of collaborations. 

Immersion recently released its second volume in its swirly Nanocluster series. The project shows the duo/life partners working with other storied electronic and experimental artists. Volume 2’s lineup is stacked and features former Swans percussionist Thor Harris, Cubzoa, and Matt Schulz from Holy Fuck.

In addition to Immersion, the duo hosts an online radio show, Swimming in Sound. Each week, they push their listening boundaries, spinning everything “from egg punk to neoclassical,” says Newman. 

“After you’ve been doing this for years for years, you get obsessed about yourself, your career, and what’s next for you.” Newman admits. “It’s so refreshing to be back like when we were young, completely obsessed with new recordings, and that’s fantastic. It’s really sad when people say there’s nothing good anymore in music. It’s nonsense.”

In the days leading up to the release of their Nanocluster Vol. 2, Newman and Spigel shared a list of some of their favorite groups they’ve found on their recent listening journey.

Colin Newman: “[This] is very beautiful. It has gorgeous instrumentals and there’s some vocal stuff that’s almost like the Beach Boys. It’s large and has great harmonies. It’s very much from now. It’s not about the past.”

Malka Spigal: “The person behind Goon, Kenny Becker, suffers from a condition impacting different parts of his senses. Sometimes, he can’t do anything because of it. So I think when he feels better it comes out in the music.” 

Colin Newman: “We missed seeing them at South By Southwest two years ago—”

Malka Spigel: “Which we are still gutted about. I love the music so much. Sometimes seeing someone live changes your relationship with the music.”

Colin Newman: “Unlike Goon, who are probably in their thirties, SUSS are all probably at least in their 60s. It’s a new band made of older people.” 

Malka Spigel: “They describe their music as ambient country, which sounds weird, but it’s very beautiful. To us, It feels American, like it’s in a good open space.” 

Colin Newman: “Yeah. It sounds like it was recorded way out in the West. If you think of ambient and country, these are two things you don’t expect to find in the same sentence, let alone the same genre, but they have so beautifully melded them to make something special. We got to know them because we’re fans of what they do. We are planning a collaboration together as well.

“We just think everyone should have heard of them because they’ve so completely nailed their particular aesthetic.

“There are other people operating in that aesthetic. At one point there was a band called Hammock, but they’ve gone a bit off now.”

Colin Newman: “This band sings mostly in French, are a couple, and call themselves Bibi Club because they say they created disco music in their front room because they’re looking after their little ones. So they are obviously persons of a certain age with young children.”

“They’re from Montreal. They have super catchy tunes. She’s got a lovely voice.”

Malka Spigel: “He’s a great guitarist.” 

Colin Newman: What’s not to love?” 

Malka Spigel: “There’s something very genuine about them, their approach and how they come across. It’s important.”

Colin Newman: “Brighde Chaimbeul is from Highland in Scotland and speaks Gaelic as her first language. She’s also super young.”

Malka Spigel: “She plays an instrument called a small pipe, which is like a bagpipe but smaller, and she has the most beautiful soulful voice. We were lucky to see her live at South By Southwest.”

Colin Newman: “Here’s a recommendation: Get a really good stereo. Get this album. Put it on really loud, and the first three minutes could possibly blow your mind. It’s one of the most dramatic entrances on any record.

“This album was recorded in the church with a lot of old instruments. It starts with a church organ, which plays some droning notes, then you get this breathing, and then the small pipe comes. My God. It’s a racket.”

Malka Spigel: “She plays a mixture of tradition and non-traditional tunes. She’s involved with the avant-garde community. The last album she made, Carry Them With Us, features Colin Stetson, the saxophone player. You can imagine a saxophone and a small pipe together. There’s a kind of melding there, which worked quite well.”

Colin Newman: “Our last choice is someone most people have heard of but maybe not as an artist. not as a musician, and that’s Craig Leon. He produce the first Ramones album the first Suicide album, so he’s well-known as a record producer, but actually, in the late 70s, he made some music that got released as two albums, the Anthology of Interplanetary Folk Music Volume 1 and 2.

“It’s music that Malka discovered and we kind of thought, yeah, let’s play that, fully expecting to discover it was a newish electronic musician.”

Malka Spigel: “It sounded very current, very now. When we discovered who he was and what he’s done, we were blown away.”

Colin Newman: “He’s done a lot of work in the classical world as well.”

(Editor’s note: Interplanetary Folk Music Volume 1 is a compilation of Leon’s 1981 record, Nommos, and the 1982 release, Visiting. RVNG Intl. combined the releases as part of a reissue in 2014. Due to the success, Leon created the second volume for the label in 2019, composed completely of new music.)