Mandatory Enjoyment was one of those albums that hit right at the end of the pandemic. And we’re still talking about a pandemic, because the public seemed excited to see Dummy live. They toured for months, playing almost every venue and renewing an idea of sound that has never been lost, but rarely sounds as revitalized as it does in the form that this Los Angeles trio embodies. It’s common for bands to sound like anything, it’s very normal for the references to be there, but in the case of Dummy, the band has taken on a snowball effect and started to descend the endless mountain of shoegaze.
The challenge is admirable. Because they sound like a lot of things, they don’t sound like any of them, they sound like Dummy. Their comfort with this kind of madness has made them highly free to do what they want. In their latest work, Free Energy, you can either get stuck in punk, or hit new age crossroads, but also – and this is where most of the magic happens – you’re in a comfortable zone where My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Stereolab, Cocteau Twins and Spacemen 3 coexist in a completely friendly way. Dummy pick up elements here and there, so efficiently that the idea never seems stolen, but rather natural.
A great, healthy mix. In Nine Clean Nails they even sound like Joy Division, with the urgency of Disorder coming to the fore in an inexplicable way. Then, out of nowhere, we seem to be in another Manchester of the 1980s, which we didn’t ask to be in, but which makes perfect sense in Dummy’s unique logic. Unshapped Road is a second life for My Bloody Valentine post-Loveless. There’s no cut and paste or plagiarism, these things happen in Dummy’s logic with inexplicable naturalness. It’s as if they were very good mathematicians and found perfect formulas to explain the world. The world they explain is the rock world of the last fifty years. It happens in such a simple, synthetic and tangible way that this Los Angeles trio is now a must-see in popular music. AS

pôt-pot, based between Cork, Ireland and Lisbon, Portugal deals in Late 60s inspired krautrock/psych/drone grooves and cooking listeners to completion. They released their debut LP “GOING INSANE” in 2023, earning it a spot on The Thin Air’s “Best of 2024” list. In the past year the band has had sold-out shows in Lisbon, London, Liverpool, Cork, and Dublin. Looking forward, pôt-pot plans to release their first full length album, late 2025. The band will be touring throughout the year, continuing to spread their groove to the masses.