Los Angeles band Dummy find fresh possibilities in the crossover between guitar and electronic music.
There’s something interesting happening at the intersection of guitar music and the dancefloor. As electronic music enjoys another surge in popularity, more guitar bands are taking an interest in incorporating elements of a DJ’s toolkit into their sound. This convergence is hardly new, but its renewed visibility has made for an exciting period of experimentation, and Los Angeles band Dummy are particularly compelling participants in this exchange. On their third album, do you love the color of the sky?, they blend shoegaze, krautrock, dream-pop and electronic textures into a record that feels like a natural progression of their sound, even as it moves further away from the conventions of guitar music.
Dummy have always had an appetite for drawing inspiration from different corners of music. Their 2021 debut, Mandatory Enjoyment, was rooted in motorik rhythms, droning organs and the melodic sensibilities of bands like Stereolab, while 2024’s Free Energy introduced more expansive shoegaze textures, ambient passages and electronic percussion. Their latest effort takes these experiments further, placing rhythm at the forefront while retaining the band’s fondness for sweet, hazy melodies. Rather than leaning into the chaos that might come from combining so many influences, Dummy find an appealing middle ground between pop immediacy and more abstract, electronically driven arrangements.
What’s particularly enjoyable about do you love the color of the sky? is the contrast between its sounds. Clattering drum-and-bass-inspired breaks and insistent basslines sit alongside washed-out guitars, soft vocal melodies and moments of near-ambient stillness. There is a distinctly digital quality to the music, with sounds that seem to flicker, repeat and dissolve into one another, giving the record an almost synthetic sheen. Yet it never feels cold or mechanical. For all the activity happening in the arrangements, there is a buoyancy to Dummy’s songwriting that makes these unlikely combinations feel surprisingly natural.
Opener ‘April Limousine’ establishes this balance almost immediately. Skittering breakbeats cut through shimmering guitars, while Emma Maatman’s airy, slightly deadpan vocals drift above the commotion. The percussion is restless, almost frantic, yet the melody moves with an unhurried ease. It’s a song that urges you to move while allowing your mind to wander elsewhere.
Maatman’s vocals are central to holding these competing sounds together. Even as guitars grow abrasive and percussion becomes increasingly frantic, she maintains an almost nonchalant distance that makes the surrounding noise feel all the more animated. For all the movement and activity, it is the melodies tucked beneath the restless rhythms and shifting textures that keep drawing me back.
The album also knows when to slow things down, with its second track, ‘Alluvial Fan’, providing a gentler, more melancholic counterpoint to the album’s busier arrangements. ‘Squeaky Wheel’, one of its longer tracks, allows its shifting layers of percussion, guitar noise and melody to develop more gradually. The band has a talent for making dense instrumentation feel light; even when the arrangements become complicated, there’s often a clear melodic thread keeping everything within reach.
It is the mishmash of arrangements that colours more pressing concerns about the world. do you love the color of the sky? touches on climate anxiety, surveillance and technological change, with ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’ confronting the implications of artificial intelligence for human creativity. Rather than allowing the subject matter to dictate the mood, the band let bright melodies, restless percussion and unexpected shifts in texture carry the songs forward.
Ultimately, much of the appeal of do you love the color of the sky? lies in this sense of soft chaos. The physical rush of breakbeats meets the blurred edges of shoegaze, with layers of guitar noise and electronic textures constantly shifting around their cool, deadpan delivery. The record is restless but never entirely overwhelming, finding a sweet spot between movement and daydreaming. And perhaps that’s what makes me love the colour of the sky, whatever shade it happens to be that day.