Immersion's 'What Is Lost Will Return' Is a Buoyant Masterpiece of Post-Genre Optimism
Colin Newman and Malka Spigel have been doing this a long time — Wire and Minimal Compact respectively, then Immersion together, on their own swim ~ imprint. What Is Lost Will Return, out September 4th, is their second album in consecutive years, and the band frames it plainly: “an album of hope in times of conflict, an album of collaboration in times of chaos, and an album that looks forward and never back.”
The Sonic Breakdown
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Matt Schulz of Holy Fuck plays drums across the record, and Ed Chivers of AK/DK guests on “Breaking Free, Diversity, Evolution.” Having two actual drummers in a project built on modular electronics is the structural decision that makes the whole thing move — the machines set the grid, the humans keep arguing with it.
The Spatial Dynamics: Bandcamp Daily’s Jennifer Kelly describes “Wire’s jagged guitars” slumbering “fitfully under shushing disco beats,” which is exactly the trick: Newman’s clipped guitar figures are placed as rhythm, not lead. The band calls the palette “modular moods and stripped-down electronic psychedelia,” split across five songs and three instrumentals.
Standout Performance
Spigel and Newman trading vocals on material that is, per Kelly, socially conscious without being sour — she reads the record as addressing online authenticity, identity, and belonging. “We Don’t Need Your Validation” is the title that gives the game away; “Megafauna” and the closing “Frequencies & Echoes” are where the instrumental half does its best work.
Why It’s Certified
Kelly’s verdict — “the sound of an icon adapting to changing circumstances, grudgingly perhaps, but with grace” — is generous and accurate. Two people forty-plus years into their careers, releasing on a label they run themselves, made a record whose organizing principle is hope. That’s not a nostalgia move. That’s a working band. Certified great.