Wire’s Colin Newman has discovered a late-life resurgence of inventive power with Immersion, the Brighton, England, digital duo he fashioned together with his spouse, Malka Spigel. Their newest launch, Nanocluster Vol. 3 (swim~), is a sonically and thematically expansive transatlantic partnership with New York Metropolis ambient twang trio SUSS. The 2 acts are mobilizing their collaboration for a U.S. tour that kicks off March 14 in Austin at SXSW.
We cornered Newman and Spigel for a fast chat earlier than they hit the highway.
Would you provide a quick historical past of Immersion?
Immersion first began in 1994 as a means for us to get entangled within the electronic-music scene. We beloved the best way that, within the early days of techno, it was not picture pushed, and its exponents might be anybody from anyplace. In reality, at first, we had been fully nameless. Releasing on our personal label enabled us to do no matter we preferred. Via the ’90s, we embraced techno, breakbeat, drum ‘n’ bass and ambient, ending up with our most summary album, Low Affect, in 1999.
Different issues took over within the 2000s, and all of the sudden practically 15 years elapsed earlier than we re-embraced Immersion after we moved to Brighton in 2014. The mission evolves on a regular basis, and the music adjustments. But there’s a thread connected to the place we began. Immersion has at all times been an open and equal collaboration, so a part of its evolution has been to contain others, which naturally led to the entire Nanocluster concept. It’s a sequence of collaborations as each stay occasions and recordings with numerous artists we really feel an affinity with. Generally our collaborating artists have an aesthetic removed from ours, however we see that as a part of the problem.
How did the collaboration with SUSS come about?
Moreover engaged on music, we’ve additionally hosted—for 5 years already—a weekly two-hour radio present known as Swimming In Sound on Slack Metropolis, what The Face journal described as “the best station in Brighton—one in all Britain’s coolest cities.” This has uncovered us to quite a lot of superb and numerous music we’d’ve by no means found in any other case. SUSS was one such discovery. In reality, we’d been taking part in SUSS not less than two years earlier than anybody from the band observed. Because it occurs, Bob Holmes from SUSS has a month-to-month podcast, and he invited us onto his present as visitors. In the course of the ensuing post-show chat, we informed him about Nanocluster. The remaining, as they are saying, is historical past.
The fusion of Americana and digital music is kind of distinctive. What had been a few of the challenges that got here with making it work?
After we do these collaborations, we don’t essentially assume like that. On our radio present, we play a reasonably numerous collection of stuff. There are additionally hyperlinks between Immersion and SUSS, in that we’ve each executed issues that might be described as ambient—and all of us have a keenness for kosmiche (krautrock), though it expresses itself fairly otherwise in our two respective tasks. We went far into the world of SUSS to seek out commonality—after which noticed what we might convey of ourselves into that. On paper, it shouldn’t fly. However it’s music, not a theoretical blueprint.
The one factor all of the Nanocluster albums have in widespread is that we end and blend them. We do that with utmost respect for every little thing our collaborators have put into it. On this case, we had a fairly in depth change of concepts, which led to a consequence we had been all proud of.
You’re making a cease at SXSW this yr. What have been your previous experiences on the pageant?
In 2023, we did a Nanocluster occasion with the one and solely Thor Harris, as a prelude to what grew to become a part of Nanocluster Vol. 2. It was an incredible expertise. We rehearsed at Thor’s home together with his many cats and canines and a tree home within the yard. He’s a seasoned collaborator but additionally a fantastic human being. We did the present at Resort Vegas, and it went means higher than we’d hoped. Folks appeared to be actually up for it.
What can audiences anticipate within the stay setting?
All of the earlier Nanoclusters have had the efficiency first and the album coming after. That is the primary time we’ve reversed the method—mainly to make one thing we are able to tour in a extra typical means. The format stays the identical, nonetheless: units from each Immersion and SUSS, adopted by the collaborative set. It’s a two-hour operating time with no assist band. The entire thing is the Nanocluster—that’s why you need to catch it from the beginning.
See Immersion and SUSS stay.
