[This review was originally published in Badaboom Gramaphone #3 and appears here with permission.]
A home-recorded electronics project of New Yorker Lawrence Lui, Dominions occupies the distant spheres of sample concrète cut-ups and electro-pop. The mix is an ominous foray through simple pop progressions and contrasting sound layers. On Pocket Operator, Lui manages to incorporate every perceivable mistake in the compositions, including metal-on-metal amplifier hum (“The Decorum of Empty Houses”), choked singing (“Long Long Ago”) and overamplified sheets of noise (“Ah Pook the Destroyer”). However, this is more than just Nurse With Wound Jr. at play, as the orchestrated synth sounds of Pet Shop Boys, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and New Order (whose “Every Little Counts” is covered here) are just as apparent. Vocal mumbles, where Lui sounds like he’s singing half-forgotten tunes from years past, come up on the sweeping “Ann Bollin to the Edge of Tomorrow” and the broken melodies of “Lullaby” and “Are We Now Reconciled.” A proper listen to Dominions finds these foundations of song form in the sinewy rawness, and hears them as much particles for sound exploration as that which surrounds them.