The Sympathy of All Things Built Our Sacred Pleasures to Reward Patience, Not a Hook
A 2025 Catalogue Single From the California High Desert That Declines the Usual Pop Arc
The Sympathy Of All Things released our sacred pleasures on 9 May 2025, paired with Mourning Ghosts as a two-track release. The project belongs to Dominic Parker, who works out of Lancaster in California’s High Desert. Sixteen months on, this is still the track people are handed as an introduction, which says something about what it was built to do. It is alternative rock and bedroom pop by description, but the more useful label is the one the record earns: ambient and impressionistic, still tethered to a pop structure.
You can listen to our full playlist which contains the artist’s music, and know more about the artist’s work by scrolling down the page.
The Listener Our Sacred Pleasures Was Built For
Most singles are engineered to make a decision easy. A hook arrives early, the chorus confirms it, and a listener knows within thirty seconds whether to stay. This one declines that arrangement. It moves rather than builds. The vocal sits loose and floating, shaped more by tone than by melody. No moment arrives to settle the question for you.
That is a real filter. A listener who wants a song to announce itself will move on, and The Sympathy Of All Things does not write to stop them. The audience it holds is the one willing to spend four minutes without a payoff promised in advance. Writers who covered it reached the same point. The track is built as an experience, and it asks a listener to do some of the work.
There is craft under the drift. Dream pop and art rock supply most of the vocabulary, and a thread of funk in the bassline stops the whole thing floating away. The abstraction reads as a choice by someone who could clearly make the conventional version and declined.
The High Desert setting matters too. Lancaster sits well outside the Los Angeles music economy despite being an hour from it. Working at that distance tends to produce records shaped by the maker’s own patience, not a scene’s expectations.
The Response Since 2025, and the Catalogue Around It
Coverage came from Zillions Magazine and Indie Boulevard, both engaging with the track as a deliberate object rather than a release to summarise. Indie Boulevard placed it directly against its companion piece. Mourning Ghosts went for something emotional and immediate, while this one aimed at a different target entirely. Two tracks, released together, built to do opposite jobs.
That pairing is the most interesting thing about the release, and it explains the durability. A listener who bounces off one usually finds the other, so the pair covers more ground than either would alone.
The catalogue behind it supports the same reading. Translucence arrived in 2020, and Amargi and Alight have followed more recently. The through-line stays consistent: records that prioritise atmosphere and let structure run loose. This is not an artist experimenting with abstraction between conventional singles. It is the whole approach, sustained across five years.
The self-description on the socials puts it plainly enough. Dominic runs the accounts under the line “Lover of Being; Conjurer of Sounds”, which either lands or reads as slightly much depending on your tolerance. Either way it tells a prospective listener what register to expect.
Where It Sits Against Beach House, Slowdive and Cocteau Twins
Three reference points place the record for anyone deciding whether to spend the four minutes.
Beach House are the closest for method. They built a catalogue on records that move at one steady level and reward repetition. That is the same trade this single makes.
Slowdive are the reference for the vocal treatment. They long ago established that a voice can sit inside the arrangement as one more layer. That is exactly what happens here.
Cocteau Twins sit behind both, having proved decades ago that a pop song can keep its shape while its parts stop behaving like pop. That inheritance is audible throughout.
Who Should Add Our Sacred Pleasures, and Where to Hear It
Does your listening run to the patient end of dream pop, the records that reward a second and third pass rather than announcing themselves? Then this belongs on the list. It works best late, at volume, with nothing queued behind it.
It also makes a fair entry point. Pairing with Mourning Ghosts means you get both halves of what this project does in one sitting, and the rest of the catalogue follows from whichever one lands.
IndieMusic.News curator team: “our sacred pleasures is doing something unfashionable on purpose. There is no hook to hang it on, the vocal is texture rather than melody, and the whole thing rewards the listener who stays. Sixteen months later it is still the track people are handed first.”
Stream our sacred pleasures on Spotify, buy it on Bandcamp, and find the catalogue on Apple Music and SoundCloud. Follow the project on Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook and their YouTube channel.
