by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Ending your week with the debut of a great new band is about as good as it gets and this week is really delivering with Dummy’s self-titled record, Dummy EP. Out today, just in time for Bandcamp’s fee-waiving glory, the Los Angeles quintet has created a lush mix of shoegaze, krautrock, noise pop, and everything else that is both hazy and dreamy. Led by Joe Trainor (ex-Wildhoney), the band take an almost meditative drift toward motorik composition, easing their way into swells of minimalist layering, vocals that blend together, and grandiose blankets of noise. It’s a very strong debut that knows exactly what it wants to be, and is all the more confident for it.
While a lot of bands toy with the dynamics of shoegaze and dream pop, trying to find that perfect balance of tranquility with muscular heft of loud as hell guitars, Dummy are operating at a scientific level from the start. Lead single “Angel’s Gear” opens the record, with a psych-pop swoon and a radiant melody that washes over everything like a fine film, coating every corner of the sweetened futuristic jangle. While modular synth tones traverse one song into the next, “Avant-Garde Gas Station” could be the record’s most pivotal moment. Everything feels gradual, the song builds in real time and bursts upon impact, slowly working into an unshakable hypnotic pulse as guitars sputter out of control, forever locked into place by the beat. Every shimmering moment is textured in a way that feels like staring directly into the sun, that resulting burnt vision and warped reality coming across on “Slacker Mask” and the aptly titled “Folk Song”. The record ends with an extended piece of ambient reflection, the come down after the sonic hysteria.