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Artist
Dummy
12+ albums
noise popindie rockhappy hardcorekrautrockamerican
about
Dummy is a noise pop/indie psych Los Angeles band, comprised of Emma Maatman, Alex Ewell, Joe Trainor, & Nathan O’Dell. Dummy has all the makings of a modern cult band. Formed in late 2018, the Los Angeles group have evolved noticeably in a short span of time, leaving behind the shivering avant-folk of their first EP and lo-fi video game music of EP2, recorded on an iPhone. Their debut full-length, Mandatory Enjoyment, is just as voracious, merging the band’s key influences from 1990s noise-pop and early electronic psychedelia with ambient interludes that add welcome dynamics between bursts of frenzied instrumentation. You could call it “record collection rock,” but it’s also one of this year’s most consistent debuts. Emma Maatman’s droning organ is a hallmark of Dummy’s music, filtering through almost every song on Mandatory Enjoyment. When combined with her sundazed, deadpan vocals and drummer Alex Ewell’s endlessly cycling rhythms, they sound like they’ve intently studied the Stereolab catalog. However, the band of self-professed music nerds are just as likely to name-drop bossa nova post-punks Antena, new age godfather Laraaji, or the original LA jangle-pop group, The Byrds. Dummy’s brand of drone-pop is intended to be blissful and spacious rather than dour and claustrophobic: “We love the idea that you can make layered, complex, chaotic music but not in the pursuit of it being difficult or abstract,” they have said. Dummy’s dual guitarists Joe Trainor and Nathan O’Del
