For Colin Newman and Malka Spigel, Immersion has never been a nostalgia project. The electronic duo’s history reaches back to 1994, but their latest album, What Is Lost Will Return, is less interested in revisiting the past than in proving that a long-running creative partnership can still move quickly, take risks and sound fully present.
Released on September 4, 2026, through the duo’s own swim~ label, the album followed an unusually compressed writing and recording period. What began as the possibility of a short release became a complete eight-track record in a matter of weeks. That speed did not produce a sketchbook or a collection of leftovers. Instead, it sharpened the directness that has become central to Immersion’s current sound: electronic foundations, angular guitars, melodic vocals, hypnotic repetition and a balance of joy and melancholy.
The album now sits at the centre of a broader creative moment for Newman and Spigel. In October, they are serving as resident DJs at Los Angeles public radio station KCRW through their weekly Swimming In Sound program. The residency places their listening practice alongside their own music, offering a useful window into how the duo’s creative ecosystem works: discovery, conversation, collaboration and making are not separate activities.
A record made under pressure
In interviews surrounding the release, Newman and Spigel have described a practical reason for making the album. They already had a tour planned for 2026 and wanted new music to accompany it. As MAGNET reported, the pair initially considered making an EP after deciding on a September touring period. By the end of April, they had delivered a full album.
That kind of deadline can expose a creative partnership. For Immersion, it appears to have done the opposite. The duo’s process depends on a shared ability to recognise when an idea is working and move decisively. Their collaboration is not built around one artist supplying finished material for the other to decorate. Newman and Spigel respond to each other in real time, with vocal approaches, bass lines, guitars, electronics and rhythm parts developing as a connected system.
A key part of the album’s development came from drummer Matt Schulz of Holy Fuck. He helped push the sessions forward by recording drums in a suitable studio near his home. The addition of a live, strongly recorded rhythmic layer gave the new material a different physical centre and helped the duo finish the record at speed.
That detail matters for DJs and producers because it illustrates a familiar studio truth: a new element does not need to dominate a track to change its direction. In Immersion’s case, the drums provided enough force and definition to make the existing electronic and melodic ideas feel more immediate. The result is not a return to conventional band instrumentation, but an expanded electronic language with more room for performance, texture and human variation.
Beyond reaction, without ignoring the moment
The album follows Immersion’s 2025 release WTF??, a record that responded more directly to the instability of its time. What Is Lost Will Return keeps the tension but changes the posture. Instead of simply documenting confusion, the new work looks for movement beyond it.
Newman and Spigel have described the album’s emotional centre as a mixture of joy and melancholy. That tension runs through the music. Tracks can feel spacious and reflective before locking into a firm groove. Vocals shift between melodic phrasing and conversational delivery. Guitars add abrasion without turning the project into a conventional rock record, while synths and programmed elements preserve the sense of electronic construction that has always defined Immersion.
The duo’s approach to vocals is especially important. Spigel’s singing brings a dreamlike melodic quality, while Newman’s delivery often sits closer to speech. Their voices do not merge into a single uniform style; they create contrast. That contrast gives the songs a human centre without reducing them to traditional singer-songwriter structures.
For artists working across club music, live electronics and experimental pop, Immersion offers a useful model. The project does not treat genre as a fixed identity. It treats it as a set of tools. A bass line can suggest dub, a guitar can introduce tension, a vocal can clarify an idea and repetition can turn a simple figure into an atmosphere. The point is not to demonstrate every influence, but to allow different materials to coexist without losing focus.
Listening as part of the practice
Their Swimming In Sound radio program has become another important part of that focus. Newman and Spigel spend each week selecting and presenting music from a broad range of independent artists and labels. The programme is not simply promotional support for Immersion. It is a way of maintaining contact with new methods, new production choices and different forms of musical communication.
In their recent conversation with The Creative Asylum, the pair discussed how their wider work includes Immersion, their Nanocluster collaboration series and their swim~ label. That infrastructure gives them room to keep experimenting without waiting for an external institution to define the next step.
The KCRW residency extends that approach into a new setting. During October 2026, the duo are presenting their selections as resident DJs, bringing their interest in independent electronic, experimental and alternative music to a larger audience. It is a professional development that feels aligned with their wider career rather than separate from it. They are not stepping away from their own music to become broadcasters; they are making broadcasting another part of the same artistic practice.
Building forward instead of living on legacy
Newman’s history with Wire and Spigel’s work with Minimal Compact give both artists a deep connection to post-punk and independent music history. Yet the current Immersion project is not being presented as an archival extension of either catalogue. Their recent interviews repeatedly return to the importance of creating work that belongs to the present.
That attitude also shapes the live version of Immersion. The project has developed into a touring act rather than remaining only a studio collaboration. The duo have continued to build their audience through focused live dates, with Schulz joining when geography allows. Their performances retain the unpredictability of a working electronic band: machines and prepared structures provide a framework, but the goal is not to reproduce a finished recording with mechanical precision.
For DJs, that distinction is familiar. A track can be technically complete while remaining open to interpretation. The most useful records often contain enough structure to mix confidently and enough character to redirect a set. What Is Lost Will Return works in that space. Its rhythms are clear, but its textures remain unsettled. Its hooks are immediate, but the arrangements leave room for atmosphere and discovery.
Immersion’s current chapter is therefore not defined by a dramatic reinvention. It is defined by continued usefulness: to one another, to their listeners, to the independent artists they champion and to the creative systems they have built around themselves. A rapidly completed album, an active touring schedule and a radio residency all point to the same principle. After more than four decades in music, Newman and Spigel are still choosing motion over myth.
That may be the most valuable lesson in their latest work. Longevity does not require repeating the sound that first established an artist. It can mean preserving the conditions that make new work possible: curiosity, direct communication, trusted collaborators, decisive editing and the willingness to let the next idea change the plan.