Album Review: Mechanics of Dominion by Esmerine

A sequel of sorts to 2015's Lost Voices, Esmerine's latest offers a dynamic response to the dire state of the natural world we're bound to in eight crossover chamber pieces.   "The Space in Between" sets the tone with a dramatic neoclassical lament, the title evoking the mounting frequency of so-called natural disasters. The piece rolls out like a montage soundtrack for climate change, at first plodding then hurtling, passages reflecting a world spun out of control. You can feel ice caps melting, floodwaters rising, wildfires consuming in ….

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Mechanics Of Dominion, the latest album from Esmerine, and not the worst MOT centre known to humanity, opens with a song entitled The Space In Between. The first few moments suggest that the gap in between is huge, although quite what this space is between is anyone's guess. However it's hard to shake the idea that perhaps the space being referred to is the distance that we are putting between each other and that as a species we are becoming more insular and secluded, on a path that leads only to emotional turmoil.

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Mechanics of Dominion begins with a single sustained piano note, left alone until it has almost fully faded out. It rings out again, joined by a few more in short rise and fall succession. The orbits of repetition elongate, tugging stray atmostpheric wisps into their gravity. The piano accelerates from circling to swirling.

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Like many records released this year, Mechanics of Dominion is permeated with the looming shadow of apocalypse. The violins behind the arpeggios in 'The Space In Between' are the cold eyes of the past focusing in on 2017 as a pivotal moment in our planet's intractable suffering. These are the dark ….

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