Photo by Jason Watkins

“Nine Clean Nails” is a telling title in the context that it’s coming from Dummy and the Los Angeles noise-pop band’s forthcoming sophomore effort, Pure Energy. If you’ve been paying attention to their output since releasing their two pandemic-era breakthrough EPs and 2021’s debut album, Mandatory Enjoyment, the four-piece of vocalist Emma Mattman, Nathan O’Dell, Alex Ewell, and Joe Trainor rarely approach conventionalism with how their sound is crafted, but here, they’re doing their most in embracing something resembling that without compromising the weird punk-dream-pop-shoegaze-new-age alchemy that has prefaced the listen to date. “Unrelenting time / Left to my own devices / On a Saturday night / Expect another apathetic sigh,” Maatman’s voice halos into a sphere. Though the softer sides of Dummy swell, they eventually burst as the colorful mania of motorik spirals pierce their way through. “Whatever I told you / Wasn’t a lie.” True that, as each cinches its way in cleanly and sticks.

Directed by: Emma Maatman and Katie Ryan

Dummy’s Free Energy will be released September 6th on Trouble In Mind Records.