Dome - 3

Spooky, angular, danceable with a sprinkling of jazz, defiance, thump, sex, chutzpah. If undepressed robots did dance music in a world free of artificiality, cancer and filled with fatty foods.


Quite a favorite. Even my baby digs it. I see her wee head a noddin'.


Dome 3 was released in 1981. The London post punk band consisted of Graham Lewis and Bruce Gilbert, both of Wire. They released four albums between 1980 and 1984 without releasing a single. The side project ended when Wire re-formed in 1985.

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Wireviews: This compilation collects the second pair of Dome releases: Dome 3 and Will You Speak This Word: Dome 4.

Dome 3 is more musically structured than previous Dome work, often borrowing rhythms and sounds from other cultures and mixing them with abstract noise. The idea of cut-up vocals is taken to the extreme until all that's left is fragments of words, ramblings, nonsense and vocal noises. It begins well with the hypnotic rhythms of Jasz and Ar-Gu, but substance is sometimes lacking. Although there are standout tracks, such as Na-drm and the incredible Roos-an, this is probably the weakest of all the Dome LPs.

Wikipedia: Gilbert and Lewis were both members of Wire, and formed Dome during Wire's 1980–1984 hiatus. Over their first three albums, Wire's music had progressed from rapid-fire punk rock to moody, ambitious post-punk, and Dome continued the experimentation, often abandoning traditional song structures in favor of found sounds, melodic fragments and what critics Steven Grand and David Sheridan describe as "lurching mechanical noises infrequently keeping a vague beat."[1]

Between 1980 and 1981 they recorded three LPs; Dome One, Dome 2, and Dome 3, all on their own Dome Records label.

As well as releasing Dome albums, Gilbert & Lewis also produced and released records by Desmond Simmons (who plays on Colin Newman's solo albums A-Z and Not To) and AC Marias on the Dome label.

The 3R4 LP was released in 1980, followed by the Kluba Cupol EP and Ends With The Sea 7", all on the 4AD Records label. In 1982 they released MZUI (Waterloo Gallery), an LP of recordings make at Waterloo Gallery with Russell Mills.

In 1983 the duo teamed up with Dome collaborator Angela Conway (aka AC Marias) to release the Whilst Climbing Thieves Vie For Attention LP under the name P'O. In that year they also released the Or So It Seems LP under the name Duet Emmo (an anagram of 'Dome' and 'Mute'), with Daniel Miller, head of Mute Records and released Dome 4: Will You Speak This Word on the Uniton label.

Wire reformed in 1984, although Dome continued to perform and record occasionally. Yclept, a collection of their later work was released on WMO in 1998.

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