Theme: collaboration. Or how to remain creative in the modern world.

Nanocluster started as a bespoke one off pop up gig that turned into an album series.

Built around Colin Newman from acclaimed UK post-punk band Wire and his partner in life and sound Malka Spigel from Minimal Compact with various guests, they define collaboration.

Colin met Malka when he produced her band in 1985.The collaboration started there.

They became a couple and created their own projects like the instrumental electronic duo Immersion in 1994 and Githead in 2004 - spaces where they both ‘feel really comfortable.’

Growing out of Immersion, Nanocluster was birthed as a series of one-off gigs at the Rosehill in their new hometown of Brighton in 2017 with an added cast of influential and cutting edge musicians.

These were not ad hoc jams.

The songs had been written and rehearsed prior to each performance. This adventure led to a debut album, Nanocluster Vol 1, released in 2021 with Stereolab singer/guitarist Laetitia Sadier, German post-rock duo Tarwater, electronic musician Ulrich Schnauss and experimental artist Robin Rimbaud (Scanner).

Released again as double 10 inch with each collaboration taking up each disc, the new album Nanocluster Vol 2 has further developed this idea with a stark beauty that sounds like a future pop with sleek lines and unexpected great melodies.

Disc one is built around Thor Harris, the charismatic percussion player from Swans and many other projects, who they met and performed with at South By South West in Austin, Texas in 2023. Thor adds ideas, his tuned percussion instruments, clarinet and trumpet to the sessions.

Disc two is built around Cubzoa (Jack Wolter from the band Penelope Isles) who brings his musical craft, beguiling voice, guitar and much more.

Meanwhile Matt Schulz from Holy Fuck plays drums across both combinations helping the resulting music become a third entity.

What results is a true collaboration that, enhanced via Immersion’s production, merges its elements to develop a new harmony.

Key to the process is Colin and Malka’s radio show for Slack City radio, ‘Swimming In Sound’ with its entertainingly diverse playlist that has widened their horizons. It’s also helped build relationships not only with these collaborators but also musicians like ambient country masters SUSS, with whom they plan an extended Nanocluster tour in the USA with in 2025 and Brighton via Falmouth’s “jangly pop punk” Holiday Ghosts with whom they will perform the next Nanocluster event in their home town, as well as many more in the pipeline.

It was four years into the swim ~ label’s history before Bastard arrived. Like my previous albums, it was another collaboration – although this time only with my partner in life and crime, Malka Spigel.

There was a point in the ’90s when British music journalists basically didn’t get dance music and would refer to it as “faceless techno bollocks”. It was that very attribute that Malka and I felt most attracted to. In instrumental music, you could be anyone from anywhere. The only thing that mattered was how good your tunes were. In fact, for the first Immersion album, we pretended to be from Germany and were photographed in wigs and masks. This had the unexpected result of the album selling more copies in Germany than anywhere else!

With Bastard, it took a while to get to the concept, which was essentially this: What if we subverted the whole ‘bloke from Wire’ thing and had a Colin Newman album without any actual songs on it? These days, this is not such a big thing, but it was hugely transgressive at the time. The language of Bastard is house, techno, breakbeat, drum and bass, and doubtless post-rock. The only singing is a one-line Malka sample on ‘Turn’. Not only did the album not play by the rules of what would these days be called music by a ‘heritage’ artist, but it didn’t play by the rules of dance music either. Back then, dance music artists didn’t mix up styles as they do today. This is one of the reasons the album’s called Bastard.

Upon release, Bastard was modestly successful in comparison to the label’s other releases, although widely misunderstood. The title is intentionally multifaceted, referring to several ways in which the album is a misfit – a cuckoo in the nest. But it never meant ‘Colin Newman is a bastard’ – even if Malka’s toy finger gesture on the cover tempted fate on that!

Malka and I have done more work together on swim ~ – and, of course, there has been plenty of Wire activity after its second hiatus during the 1990s – but I never felt the need to do another solo album. I don’t crave attention and certainly don’t feel I lackways to express myself. In many ways, it’s more creative to collaborate with others.

There is joy and beauty in collaboration. And collaborating with Malka has become so effortless that we almost don’t know whodoes what in the work we create. This has led us to throwing open our partnership via Nanocluster events and albums where webuild musical bridges and make partnerships that transcend the art. Maybe that’s the point? Surely, art should be about human connection and diversity of expression?

Colin Newman, Brighton, 2023 (edited from album sleeve notes).

TRACK LISTING

LP & CD1
Sticky
May
Slowfast (falling Down The Stairs With A Drumkit)
Without
G-deep
Spaced In
Spiked
The Orange House & The Blue House
Turn

CD2
Automation
Faq
Voice
Output
The Narrativ (with Corrado Izzo)
Blank Canvas
Time Will Allow
Tsunami
Cut The Slack (2001)
Found & Bound (2001)
Unbroken (2001)
Flight Mode (2008)

CD2 Info:
Tracks 1–4 Taken From 1995 EP Voice.
Tracks 5–8 Originally Appeared On Swim Team #1 And Swim Team #2.
Tracks 9–12 Previously Unreleased And Exclusive To This Edition.