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What the f*ck?? What the f*cking f*ck??
It’s the only realistic response to these dark, divisive and dangerous times. How do you react? How do you feel? How do you soundtrack? Immersion, the project of post punk musical architects Colin Newman (Wire) and Malka Spigel (Minimal Compact) and Matt Schulz (Holy F*ck, Savak & Lake Ruth), have reacted with a startling album that combines the adventure of post punk to the possibilities of electronic.
Always creatively restless, Immersion have created a perfect Venn diagram mix of not just their inner core of Colin Neman and Malka Spigel but also a perfect synthesis of past, present, and future with a smart post punk electronic on an album of brooding uncertainty to match these troubled times.
Adding a very modern sheen with a crisp, concise production that allows the songs to breathe, Immersion remains perfectly in tune with post-punk’s restless innovation whilst craftily creating melodic, dark forest pop songs that should sit easily on both evening and daytime radio.
There are, of course, echoes of both their distant pasts: either Malka’s aural adventures in Minimal Compact with her minimalist bass runs or Colin’s groundbreaking trips with Wire, and their vocals on the non-instrumental tracks weave around the melodies with a deadpan delivery that craftily embraces a melodic ebb and flow. The overarching atmosphere on the album is a resigned commentary on the world going to hell in a handcart in a time when quite intelligent thinking that couches this creativity is pushed to the side by high-decibel hot air…WTF indeed!
Despite this, the song cycle is a captivating adventure into sound that makes great play of the song’s hooks with both their vocals entwining to bring a tuneful elixir to the sparse, hypnotic song structures. There is also a playfulness and a joy of creation in the mesmerising soundscapes and an album that should see Immersion step further out from the shadows of both their glorious pasts and forge a new frontier.
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