Photo by Kyle Berger

Over the years, the still-ascendent, transcendent ambient noise-pop greats Dummy have done this thing where you can always count on at least two of their advance previews off a new album to come your way at once. It happened with their self-titled EP’s centerpiece’s “Folk Song” and “Touch The Chimes”, it happened with the Free Energy highlights “Opaline Bubbletear” and “Blue Dada”, and it’s happening again with “April Limousine” and “Alluvial Fan”, the latest singles off the Los Angeles band’s third album, do you love the color of the sky?

These pages can only speculate as to why they do this, and speculate it shall do that the reason is beyond showcasing their multitudes, but rather to ask of their listeners to sit with and process the album as a whole when it does arrive in full, as a body of art should be. There, all shall be revealed as the days of press cycles setting only an artists’ most accessibly strongest songs free into the world to hinge upon racking up their streaming count are over.

The dichotomy between each is independent in their creation nonetheless. On “April Limousine”, synthesist Emma Maatman introduces the album over an instantaneous entrancement of experimental drum ‘n bass hypnosis, entwining referential tangents to the listen’s surrounding song particles as well as posing the question within the album title itself to the beholder. It’s a sonic disorientation of new age anxieties in the face of racing technology that threatens to disrupt our inner peace, permanently.

Followed by “Alluvial Fan”, the energy shifts into Nathan O’Dell’s own existential inquisitions. A chiming whirr over Alex Ewell’s trip-hop-like drum focus signifies that disruption does not always present itself in chaos. “Free you from present time,” he sings. This is to say that while our progress as evolutionary beings is oft revered, Dummy are asking the right questions as to whether these promises to broaden possibility in our world may somehow end up building new walls within it. To get that full picture, you’ll have to be intentionally undivided with the way you experience Dummy’s music, too.

Directed by: Emma Maatman

Dummy’s do you love the color of the sky? will be released October 16th on Polyvinyl Records.