Dummy didn’t find their way onto these pages by way of a big name publicist or the pre-fashioned buzz of a much larger tastemaking website. The remnants of Wildhoney entered this listening conscious through the daring cold approach of the band itself shooting their shot at a blog’s inbox, and hoping that mentioning some mutuals across one another’s socials might catch a writer’s interest. At the time, the Los Angeles band’s earliest recording, 2020’s EP1 — then released on Justice Tripp’s Pop Wig Records — was a collage of very promising ideas circling broadly around shoegaze, new age, kraut rock, and post-punk, but hadn’t yet landed in any one altered zone with them, which made it all the more intriguing. EP2, an even more primitive exploratory delve into textures of sound, kaleidoscopic colors, and experimental energy released on Born Yesterday, would soon follow that same fateful pandemic year. Fast forward one debut full-length dose of excellent Mandatory Enjoyment in 2021 and last year’s best album, Free Energy, and it’s safe to say that these are the kind of discoveries you love to witness flourishing from the ground up as a complete DIY effort. Now that Dummy are no longer a secret and will be opening for the likes of Soccer Mommy this fall in some pretty big venues, they’re nurturing new listeners into their fold by re-releasing those formative first two EPs alongside bonus tracks that will collectively be known as the Dumb EPs. One such extra, “Ethereal Security Guard”, really punctuates how far they’ve come. A total portal into another plane informed by calming ambient textures and German retro electronic minimalism, it’s one of the only known tracks to feature guitarist Joe Trainor on vocals. It’s also a fascinating look-back into Dummy’s embryonic stages, as if you can hear the particles forming into a greater matter before they would begin to pop off properly.

Fall Tour Dates:

Dummy’s Dumb EPs will be released August 15th on K Records / Perennial.