Dummy talks experimentation, ambient rock, and the creation of a unique live experience.
Dummy’s do you love the color of the sky?, released on 16 October via Polyvinyl Records, is an album filled with experimental production techniques, swirling guitars, and layers of self-samples drawn from the band’s own playing. On their third album, the Los Angeles-based band draw on sounds that recall everyone from Goldie to The Sundays, bringing those influences into a unique world of their own. Ambient rhythms are coupled with hazy textures and looped guitars to create a sense of emotional vulnerability, tackling politically relevant topics like climate degradation and surveillance, while encouraging the audience to find beauty in the world around us.
We spoke to guitarist Joe Trainor about making music together, pushing themselves to create something new, and the records they return to for inspiration.
For anyone coming to Dummy fresh, how did you all come together, and what do you call the music you make?
I’m Joe, I play guitar in Dummy, I am from Maryland and we like to think of our music as ambient rock.
Nathan, Emma and I all met through the punk/DIY music scene in Baltimore. Alex and I met through a dating app, and are now married. Lance, the latest addition, was through us posting needing a bassist.
What do you want a Dummy show to feel like, and has all that touring changed how you make records?
Just something very muscular and immersive, experiencing seeing a band really focused on giving you something you haven’t seen 10,000,000 times already.
Just the understanding that recording and live shows are two separate ways to present the music. We’ve made the recordings more and more physical sounding due to all the touring.
Do you usually start with a clear idea for a song, or does it take shape as you go? Are you always on the lookout for sounds you could use?
We are always throwing everything against the wall in the beginning, then we create the arrangements by subtraction and processing things.
Ya, definitely, we’ve included field recordings on all our releases. If we hear something interesting, we will all pull phones out to record. We have a large bank of sounds saved up.
How do you decide what makes it onto an album? Once it’s all together, is there usually a track that makes you think, ‘Yeah, that’s a Dummy song’?
This record was the first time we had extra songs left over, and they just didn’t work within the context of the record and vinyl format we are writing to.
Each LP has one. ‘Atonal Poem’ from our first record, ‘Blue Dada’ from Free Energy, and for the new record I’d say ‘Song of Mana’ really shows how we push ourselves to present something new.
And do you have a personal favourite on the new record?
‘Heavens What You Make Of It’ is my favourite song on the record. Emma realllllly blew me away when she sent the demo vocals. It’s the most beautiful and earnest thing we’ve released.
Was there a record you kept coming back to while making this one? And is there one that’s shaped the way Dummy makes music more generally?
For me personally it was an album by the band Transient Waves called Sonic Narcotic. It’s very dreamy, at times groovy but abstracted ambient rock.
It’s pretty basic but Loveless by MBV really informs us on so many levels, from songwriting/arranging to production and making guitars sound not like guitars.
What do you hope people take away from the new record?
The world is shit but we have to have class solidarity, there’s beauty/goodness in most people.
Is there anything you’re loving right now? Anything you’re hating?
Really loving the Harmony Index record and really hating how musicians are approaching music as a business venture and not an artistic pursuit.
Do you love the colour of the sky?
I think blue is perfect.