Editions Mego are releasing a 5xLP vinyl box set compiling the work of Dome.

Dome was formed by Wire members Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis when the band first broke up in 1980. Installing themselves at Blackwing Studio in London, assisted by engineer Eric Radcliffe, the duo set out to “use the studio as a compositional tool”.

As Dome they recorded three albums in one year, releasing them on their own Dome label. Their brooding, electronics-rooted and decidedly minimalist music took off where Wire’s 154 left off, with special attention played to texture and atmospherics. In Mego’s words, “these albums represent some of the most beautifully stark and above all timeless exercises in studio experimentation from the early 1980s alternative music scene.”

Dome also produced for other artists, lending their talents to such cult classics as Desmond Simmons’ Alone On Penguin Island and AC Marias’s One Of Our Girls. AC Marias’s Angela Conway became a fixture of the Dome universe, lending her crystalline vocals to ‘Cruel When Complete’ on Dome 1 and several tracks on Dome 3.

Following the original quickfire Dome trilogy, a fourth and final album, Will You Speak This Word: Dome 4, was issued by Norwegian label Uniton in May 1983. Wire re-formed in 1985, at which point Dome went quiet, until dancer/choreographer Michael Clark commissioned them to score his ballet Because We Must in 1989. This music, together with a number of newly commissioned pieces, formed the body of YCLEPT (Dome 5), a compilation released by WMO in 1999.

And so to Mego’s deluxe box set, entitled 1-4+5. It features all four Dome albums remastered by Russell Haswell, cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates+Mastering and appearing on vinyl for the first time in 30 years, plus the very first vinyl edition of YCLEPT. The new artwork is by longtime Dome collaborator David Coppenhall, and there are reproductions of the original Atelier Koninck posters that accompanied Dome 1 and Dome 2, an insert with sleevenotes by Howards Jacques and Neil Martinson, plus unseen photos from the period and a, er, matchbox “to put matches in to shake along to your favourite Dome tune!”

Dome 1-4+5 is the latest, and most ambitious, in a series of Bruce Gilbert-related reissues and special editions from Mego, following hot on the heels of the vinyl revival of his similarly oriented solo works This Way and The Shivering Man. Released December 6, you can pre-order the item for €90 (Austria), €100 (Europe) or €120 (World), and view tracklist and other information, here. The music will also be made available digitally.