SPOTLIGHT: Dummy on their Otherworldly Record ‘do you love the color of the sky?’
SPOTLIGHT
SPOTLIGHT
☆ BY ALEAH ANTONIO ☆
Photo by Kyle Berger
“IT’S A BATTLE OF HUMANITY VERSUS TECHNOLOGY DURING PRACTICE—Everything has to be very precise and focused, which, rock and roll is more loose and has a certain amount of messiness. We’re trying to figure out how to balance those two elements of our band.”
Joe Trainor of Dummy is talking about their rehearsals for tour in support of Dummy’s newest record, do you love the color of the sky?, out today. If you listen to the songs, it’s easy to wonder how the hell they’re going to translate it in a live setting. The band really cares how their music is perceived by their audience—”Live performance is the other side of our band. We care about it just as much as the recorded side, if not more,” Trainor says.
Drummer Alex Ewell and vocalist Emma Maatman are in this conversation, calling in from their respective homes in Los Angeles. When altogether with guitarist Nathan O’Dell, Dummy is one of the most talented and interesting experimental bands making music. Their creation comes from a deep love for discovering other music in the process, playing with gear and production, obsessing over craft and choices.
For example, a lot of inspiration came from going down a Discogs rabbit hole. “Alex and I discovered all these artists—new to us—from learning how to do this search function on Discogs where you can combine a bunch of different words,” Trainor tells me.
From this frenzy, they were pulling Locust’s Morning Light, Transient Waves’ Sonic Narcotic, Colin Newman (Wire) solo records, Malka Spigel and Accelera Deck all into their arsenal. The result is the dream world of do you love the color of the sky?. They’ve traded their Neu! and Stereolab comparisons from first two records Mandatory Enjoyment (2021) and Free Energy (2024) to something more akin to Yo La Tengo’s Painful. If you want, there’s also Dummy’s companion playlist on Spotify for DYLTCOTS? for recommended and inspired listening, just like they do with their other records.
“After we did that, we barely scratched the surface with those influences and the creative excitement. For this record, we knew we were going to go further in that direction,” Trainor says. We’re going to get rid of the synths and really focus on the guitar, processing guitar, and sampling our own guitars.”
There’s more room for vocals on the records, with appearances by friends-of-Dummy Nina Pitchkites (Wishy) and Allyson Foster (New Issue). The landscape of DYLTCOTS? songs makes Maatman and O’Dell the stars of the show. Their vocal performance moves to the forefront, and listening to them sing feels like you’re reading a book: “I get very intense about lyric writing… This record especially, I was pretty much only listening to our demos for nine months straight, just writing lyrics obsessively all day every day,” Maatman says.
Take “April Limousine,” the opening track in which the album gets its name. Maatman sings, “Gathering soul residue / Exaggerated orders of magnitude / Quantum immorality / What’s your excuse? / Do you love a bad friend? A prototype? The government? Do you love the color of the sky?”
We like to write more upbeat, pop-y songs, but I like to couch dark or subversive or political messaging with a happy-sounding pop song,” Maatman says. “We reverse engineered how [do you love the color of the sky?] could have so many different meanings… Do you like what’s going on in the world right now? Do you want to continue on? Do you like what’s happening?”
Our earlier conversation about “humanity versus technology” is ever present in not just the tracks, but in the music videos. The Matt Wells (Post Man Animation) directed video for “Full Spectrum Dominance” is a trip, rendering office workers into uncanny valley figures, running away from the natural disasters in a digitized world. The dual music video for “April Limousine/Alluvial Fan” pixelizes and color-distorts the sky, utility poles and concrete buildings between trees.
“The way these corporate forces are polluting the planet, destroying the ecology of the world, I feel like that’s what the title is referencing. ‘Do you guys care about this?’ The world is a fragile place. We’re supposed to be stewarding the planet. With how things have turned out with all the corporate power in the world, it’s like, this isn’t what anybody wants, right?” Trainor says.
Dummy understands that technology is a tool—something used as a weapon against many, but in their hands, is controlled to create something beautiful. Their drum machine is at the core of all of their songs, alongside their diverse pedals, looping machines, and Digitech processors.
“The whole point is to have the audience hear and feel and see something interesting, immersive, fun and impactful,” Trainor says. “If you haven’t heard our band before and you happen to come to the show, you’re gonna be like, ‘Damn, I say something cool that I haven’t heard or seen before.’ That’s the goal.”
Photo by Kyle Berger
