“What the f*ck??”
It’s not just an album title—it’s the only reasonable response to a world that feels like it’s been set to slow-burn chaos. For Immersion—the electronic union of Wire’s Colin Newman and Minimal Compact’s Malka Spigel, joined here by drummer Matt Schulz—that phrase is less an expletive and more a manifesto. Their new album WTF?? (out September 26 via their own ~swim label) is a taut, hypnotic, and sometimes confrontational dispatch from the frontlines of modern uncertainty.
If the pandemic years found Immersion turning their focus to their Nanocluster collaboration series, the return to their core project feels like a burst of oxygen after being submerged too long. A recent run of UK and US shows didn’t just rekindle their live energy—it cracked something open. The result is eight tracks—four instrumentals, four vocal-led—that distill that adrenaline into minimal-yet-muscular compositions. They’re grooves with gravity, equal parts unease and uplift, wired with the tension of our times.
The album’s lead single, “Use It Don’t Lose It,” sets the tone with mantra-like directness. “The words are so direct they need no explanation,” the band says. And they’re right—this is protest music stripped of metaphor, a chant you can slip into mid-beat, whether you’re in the crowd or alone in your headphones. The accompanying video, co-created with Ben Newman, folds the urgency of the track into an equally arresting visual language.
Lyrically and sonically, WTF?? captures the surreal push-pull of 2025—apocalyptic dread on one side, the stubborn spark of human connection on the other. The record moves from pulsing, hypnotic instrumentals that feel like city lights blurring at midnight to vocal pieces that speak plainly to shared fears and fragile hopes. It’s political, but it’s also deeply personal: Newman and Spigel’s long-standing partnership bleeds into every note, the music shaped by decades of collaboration, love, and life lived both on and off stage.
In an age where doomscrolling is a reflex, WTF?? offers something slower, heavier, and far more necessary: a space to process, to question, to dance, and to keep going. As Immersion put it themselves, “Music is the message, the medium, the massage and the moment.” And right now, the moment sounds a lot like this
“Use It Don’t Lose It” hits with this raw, almost primal clarity. What was the first spark of that track—was it a beat, a lyric, a mood?
We started it in Brooklyn with Matt Schulz. The initial guitar you hear is Malka’s riff. We then picked it up in our studio and it became one of a number of pieces we worked up to be part of our UK tour set in 2024 and carried over to the Nanocluster tour with SUSS earlier this year. We gradually built things over time but did not want to lose the directness of the piece. We have no problem with directness in music or text.
There’s a communal power in the chant-like vocals. Were you imagining an audience joining in when you wrote it? Or was it something more personal?
Both of us “chanting” together is something new for Immersion but nothing we are currently writing is really personal (although of course we are also talking to ourselves!). There’s a lot going on in the world and we have something to say about it. It’s taken us playing live to realise how this can directly appeal to audiences. We noticed on a couple of occasions that after the sudden stop at the end audience members continued the chant. And this was happening when no one in the audience would have ever heard that music before! If you are chanting along with a song you’ve never heard before it has definitely made an impact on you!
WTF?? Is such a confrontational title—and yet it feels completely earned in today’s world. What does that phrase mean to you right now?
The simple answer is What the fuck?? Just look at what is happening in the world, not just the USA but many other places. The thing is it’s not said in anger just incredulity.
There’s a real urgency pulsing through these tracks. Do you feel like the post-pandemic return to live shows shaped this energy in your studio work?
Yes, of course. There’s nothing like performing in front of people to get a kind of feedback loop on what you are doing. We’ve often been told by people at gigs over the past few years that we bring positive energy. Even when our set contained only instrumentals. We feel like the addition of pieces with vocals only enhanced that feedback. We are pretty direct in what we say but at the same time we’re not all gloom & doom & fuck you!
You’ve both been part of such foundational post-punk and experimental projects—Wire, Minimal Compact. Where does Immersion sit emotionally for you within that legacy?
We are of course proud of all we have achieved but we do not want to be part of the legacy scene. Both of us have always been more interested in contemporary music. It’s where we feel most comfortable. We are also very much informed by the fact that over the past 5 years we have been putting together and presenting a weekly 2-hour radio show (swimming in sound on Slack City from our hometown Brighton). We mainly feature new music across a wide range of genres.
Because we are a couple we can almost speak with one voice, we don’t have any ego issues between us. With a band you can find your voice, but things change over time and people have different life experiences and opinions.
The record moves between instrumentals and vocal-led tracks. How do you decide what stays wordless and what needs to speak?
With Immersion nothing is planned, all its developments are organic. So as we work on a piece it becomes obvious whether it will be a vocal piece or not. Usually someone has an idea for a voice but to be honest it’s quite intuitive and there isn’t really a situation where we can’t decide. It’s always obvious!
You’ve described the album as responding to “apocalyptic madness.” Was it cathartic to create something out of the chaos, or did it bring you deeper into it?
It’s not like we are experiencing something different to what many others feel. This is how we respond, others respond in other ways. It’s of course a way to show solidarity with others (we get a lot of feedback about that at gigs) We feel like the situation demands some kind of response but as to if it is cathartic to us or anyone else, we can’t definitively say because we are not looking back on a period of chaos we are living through it.
“Music is the message, the medium, the massage, and the moment.” That line feels almost like a mantra. What role do you think music should play in times like these?
It’s a quote from our friend the writer John Robb who wrote the press release. We come from music culture, so it is important to us and despite the best efforts of the “industry” to suck the life out of the artform plenty of people are still engaged and moved by music. Music can play the role it has always played. It is the most emotionally direct of all artforms. Music & words can be a very powerful combination
Your Nanocluster collaborations leaned into collectivity. With WTF??, you’ve returned to the core project. What did you miss most about just the two of you?
We ourselves are a collaboration, in life & art. Also, Immersion in 2025 brings Matt Schulz more to the fore (he also played on parts of Nanocluster Vol.2 BTW). In many ways Immersion as a stand-alone thing has gained from all the Nanocluster collaborations. The other thing to remember is that all Nanocluster collaborations when they are performed live contain sets by Immersion & our collaborators as well as the combined set so we have had plenty of chances to perform live as Immersion.
We move easily between the two worlds
The visuals—especially in the “Use It Don’t Lose It” video—are stripped down but hypnotic. How involved are you in shaping that visual identity, and how does it echo the music?
Our music can be described as stripped down but hypnotic, so we are obviously on point with the visuals Immersion is pretty much self-contained, we make the videos together, all the covers feature Malka’s images, we are also the record company and for sure we don’t have management! We work with a team (design, promotion, mastering etc.) we have worked with for many years. We are truly independent!
