Colin Newman (Wire) and Malka Spigel (Minimal Compact) return with their sharpest statement yet.
Immersion — the electronic duo of Wire’s Colin Newman and Minimal Compact’s Malka Spigel — are back with a new single and video, We Don’t Need Your Validation, the first taste of their forthcoming album ‘What Is Lost Will Return,’ due September 4 on their own label, swim~.
The track doesn’t ask you to dig deep for meaning — it hands it to you straight. As Colin and Malka put it, it’s not about rejecting the love and validation that matters, but about all the hollow, algorithm-chasing, follower-counting noise we’ve somehow agreed to live inside. The lyrics say it better than anyone:
Living in a bubble, we are all in trouble. Are you in our club? Did you pay your sub?
Are you cool enough? Are you really buff? But I’ve got more followers than you. So….We don’t need your validation. We don’t feel part of your nation
We won’t tick the box required. We don’t need to be admiredSo afraid of missing out. Driven on by fear and doubt. Image is everything. Desperate to be seen
Are you really it? Or just a stupid git? But you’ve got more followers than me. So..
Yeah. That landed.
‘What Is Lost Will Return’ is the second “pure” Immersion full-length in as many years, following up 2025’s ‘WTF??’ — and if that title was the gut reaction, this one is the exhale. As the duo explain, “The emotion we feel the album invokes is a poignant mixture of joy and melancholy.” Eight tracks (five songs, three instrumentals) that live comfortably outside genre entirely. Holy F*ck’s Matt Schulz brings his drumming muscle to most of the record, while AK/DK’s Ed Chivers guests on “Breaking Free, Diversity, Evolution.”
Worth noting: We Don’t Need Your Validation and Radio Signals were already road-tested on the 2025 UK tour, with early versions pressed on an exclusive lathe-cut 7″ — available only at shows and via mail order. The rest of the album was written, recorded and mixed between January and April 2026. Fresh, in other words.
‘What Is Lost Will Return’ track list
01 Nephology
02 Breaking Free, Diversity, Evolution
03 We Don’t Need Your Validation
04 Megafauna
05 What Is Lost Will Return
06 Childsplay
07 Radio Signals
08 Frequencies & Echoes
This release also kicks off the third UK/EU tour since 2024, with dates running from June through September.
Immersion — Tour Dates
13.06.26 — Lyse Netter Festival Moss, Norway
17.06.26 — Leigh Folk Festival, Southend
09.09.26 — Rough Trade, Liverpool
10.09.26 — Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh
11.09.26 — The White Hotel, Manchester
12.09.26 — Lubberfiend, Newcastle
17.09.26 — Ramsgate Music Hall, Ramsgate
18.09.26 — Rich Mix, London
19.09.26 — Alphabet, Brighton
For more info:
Immersion Facebook
Immersion Instagram
Immersion website
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