Dummy break down every song on Free Energy

LA four-piece Dummy, named after Portishead’s 1994 trip-hop masterclass, have been turning heads since their intriguing debut album, Mandatory Enjoyment, in 2021. Combining lo-fi noise pop, krautrock, and retro-futurism, the forward-thinking album, and the ensuing two songs for the Sub Pop Singles Club, demonstrated their drive and weirdness — giving us a taste of the avant-garde experimentalism that made the band — Alex Ewell, Emma Maatman, Nathan O’Dell, and Joe Trainor — ones to watch. The follow-up, their sophomore album Free Energy, out today via Trouble In Mind Records, offers up a change of pace that makes good on its name. Throughout its 12 tracks, Dummy have no intention of making the same record twice, turning away from the couch-locking magnetism of their debut LP and instead celebrating movement — a shift that, whether through wobbly torrents of noise, an irresistible pop chorus, or droning beats that seem to unfurl infinitely, feels profoundly gratifying. It’s music meant to make you feel more alive, sounding both slicker and more urgent while remaining completely disorienting.

Read more: On the road with Peel Dream Magazine

Below, Dummy gave us greater insight into Free Energy’s trance-y pleasure by breaking down every song.

“Intro-UB”

With Free Energy, we didn’t wanna repeat ideas we had already mined on Mandatory Enjoyment. We start off with something more trance-inducing, uptempo, and that gets your body moving, as opposed to the more inner-looking “Protostar.” “Intro-UB” is influenced by Guitar’s record Sunkissed, using guitar in a more edited/electronic way, not just someone strumming chords. We really enjoyed the process of chopping up the audio for the vocals and guitars.

“Soonish…”

“Soonish…” was the quickest song that came together for the record. We wanted to make a track that evoked the time where rave/dance music and rock music were being blended in a novel way like Curve, Chapterhouse, and of course MBV. The beat came first with the chord being built over top of it. We wanted to blast out the gate with the first “real” song, hence the feedback roaring into what is also the most straightforward pop tune on the record.

“Unshaped Road”

Early on, we were working on a more downtempo tune that ended up being trashed ’cause it just wasn’t coming together. We knew we wanted to continue trying to do something along those lines. A lot of things came together in the studio, like the NIN guitar noise in the intro, along with how we manipulated guitars into sounding like a violin/cello. This song also feels like a new mood for us, more sinister, but still retains the pop with Emma’s soaring chorus hook. Pablo’s Eye really informed this tune, an absurdly underrated band. The lyrical content is the idea of being so low to where you feel nothing but can easily replace that emptiness with tangible objects.

“Opaline Bubbletear”

This track serves as an intro/segue into “Blue Dada,” featuring a characteristically Dummy ambient improvisation. Our bud Cole Pulice contributed the otherworldly saxophone. We had the honor of performing these two tracks live with Cole several times in the Bay Area prior to recording the album. We really wanted to bring more friends in on the record — Cole’s music is one of the few current artists we all agree fucking rules.

“Blue Dada”

This was the first song that came together for the record, the damn sorta broke after struggling to write something that excited us all. The song originally was just the second half of the song, and Alex had the idea to take some of the chords and reconfigure them over the beat. What came out was very much indebted to our love of Seefeel/Bowery Electric in the way they used guitars as noise generators. The second half is like a Feelies track b/w of hardcore. It’s a super fun song to play, but also felt really hard to nail in the studio after playing it live so much.

“Nullspace”

When we were recording in February, we had two separate six-day runs of studio time, and “Nullspace” was written in between those two sessions. Nathan sent a simple demo with his melody and bass. A song about organisms with different molecular makeups forming together to make mutant shapes. A real “whole is greater than the sum of all parts” approach. We took that and just built the song around that. It was one of the magical songs where little accidents happened to inform the final product. Alex accidentally clicked the guitar loop off and on in time, the bubble sounds were made on a second-hand drum machine, and finally the super-fried guitar ending. It was all just grabbing ideas out of the aether.

“Minus World”

It’s rare a modern band really inspires Dummy directly, but this tune’s initial instrumental was inspired by watching Lewsberg’s set from Gonerfest last year that was streamed on YouTube. The bridge features another characteristically Dummy feedback section. For us, feedback is a source of infinite possibilities, offering inherent randomness and a really expressive sound. For this song, we wanted the feedback to take over, leaving all semblance of song for a few seconds, before crashing back down at the end. Another Dummy classic about the destruction of landscapes from human occupation in natural worlds.

“Dip In The Lake”

It’s interesting how many different versions of this song there are from the very much “All Tomorrow’s Parties” demo version that was all droned out and druggy, to the tour version where an abbreviated version “Sudden Flutes” was still a part of the song. To the final LP version that’s kinda Cluster meets Steve Reich. The songs on FE are more personal in their subject matter, early Dummy stuff was more about the outside world but this one certainly contends more with our inner worlds.

“Sudden Flutes”

This song also went through a bunch of different versions but what we settled on was us playing it live in the studio, which we haven’t done before. We wanted to have a more ramshackled feel after the very spacey droned out “Dip In The Lake”. The song ends with wind synths performed by Cole Pulice, their second appearance on the record. This song was inspired by wanting a fast sub one-minute punk song on the record, which is something Mystic 100’s did on their recent masterful record, and that a lot along with Dadamah spurred the genesis of this song.

“Psychic Battery”

I think most people would assume the washy pad sound is a synth, it’s actually a guitar run through the filter, with a bunch of effects to get that ambient texture. The song feels like a hymn, hushed and sacred. It’s another somewhat trip-hop-influenced song that was very much informed by our love of Hydroplane, Windy & Carl, and FSA.

“Nine Clean Nails”

When we were done touring in the EU/U.K. we were completely over our whole discography and the aesthetics we were using, especially the motorik beat that we heavily leaned on rhythmically. It’s interesting since releasing it as a single — people compared it to old stuff, but it’s not really a kraut-y song. This song was an experiment in letting there be more space within the song, so each instrument creates another rhythmic element as the song progresses. We also wanted to deploy the use of organs less as a drone and more as an additional dynamic element. This song has more in common with post-punk like B-52’s and Feelies than our older stuff.

“Godspin”

Solidifying the fixation on mesmerizing loops, the song was composed with the instrumental cycling sequence on a synthetic acoustic guitar patch. As the track progresses, the sonic stage is taken over by a collage of field recordings, captured during time on the road, on tour across the U.S. and EU. Eventually, the whirlwind of sound reaches overwhelming cacophony, reflecting the overwhelming onslaught of modern life, and giving a glimpse into life on the road. It was important to infuse these field recordings from all over the world because the record is so informed by touring /playing live. We wanted to somehow end the record differently than Mandatory Enjoyment by tricking you into a false sense of peace but descends into something more disorienting and less hopeful. This song also features Jen Powers of the great Powers/Rolin on dulcimer.