Dummy : Free Energy
If there’s a lasting piece of wisdom that’s endured since the tape-hiss era of indie rock in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, it’s that fidelity is just another aesthetic. The folk troubadour on a four-track can make as much of an emotional impact as a newly minted major-label band with a cocaine and caviar budget, maybe even more so. The distorted early recordings of a band like Guided by Voices seemingly only added texture and mystique—and vulnerability—to an already impeccable sense of pop craftsmanship, while the same can be said of the layers of guitars on a notoriously expensive album like My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless. As long as it fits the song, there’s room for a little scuzz.
Los Angeles psych-pop group Dummy likely need no convincing of this, their music not so much consciously lo-fi as harboring a sound that you could affectionately describe as “vintage.” The sound of jangly tube amp guitar distortion, fizzling analog synth arpeggios, and the kind of bass grooves that actually do sound better on vinyl all contributed to an atmosphere of joyful depth on their 2021 debut album Mandatory Enjoyment. There’s a sense that the group could have sharply turned in either direction—scruffy, demo quality lo-fi or big-budget maximalism—and it would lose neither its appeal nor unique character.
Dummy’s sophomore album Free Energy is proof of just such a concept, amplifying and expanding their sonic spectrum through a dazzling headphone experience that validates the Yngwie Malmsteen principle: More is more. Free Energy is an album made for deeper headphone listening and rife with breathtaking detail. All of which comes together in one glorious rush of feedback on “Soonish…”, bursting with dense shoegaze guitars and baggy dancefloor beats. It evokes the groovier end of early ‘90s shoegaze, such as Chapterhouse or the Loveless closer its title winks at—mellifluous but with a dose of muscle.
The landscape grows even more fascinating from there. On “Unshaped Road,” there’s a woozy flutter of bleeping synths and what sounds like a chopped-up “Amen” break, with a gorgeously disorienting phase shift transitioning into Emma Maatman’s vocal lead. It’s primo headphone candy, one where you get the most out of the experience when you can hear all the details happening in each channel, its distortion crackling and fizzing as if you had raised a soda can to your ear. The experience is comparably entrancing on “Blue Dada,” a song that’s dreamily, deceptively still, even when set against wah-wah guitar licks and pulsing beats. Yet after its first two minutes, the song kicks up into a driving krautrock noise-pop jangler, ending on a noisy display of analog organ dissonance.
It’s worth noting that, for how much these songs seem to overwhelm the senses, they’re simply excellent songs, regardless—tuneful, playful and expertly arranged. The giddy synth bubbles of “Nullspace,” the titular instrumental interruption of “Sudden Flutes” or the driving post-punk chorus of “Nine Clean Nails” are too airtight to be diminished by a reduction in clarity. But Dummy offer a more elevated experience with Free Energy, translating an already excellent set of songs into something transportive.
Label: Trouble in Mind
Year: 2024
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Dummy : Free Energy
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