Formed on the stages of the Los Angeles music scene, Dummy are wasting no time in making a splash. 2020 saw the band release two cassette EPs, and this year they will make an even stronger statement of intent with their debut long-player, Mandatory Enjoyment, out in October on the always excellent Trouble In Mind Records. Following quickly on the heels of the record’s lead single Daffodils, today the band are sharing the second track from the album, Final Weapon.

While they share a creative flourish with the more artistic edge of the alternative scene, what sets Dummy apart is the joy with which they make music. This is no po-faced experimentation, Dummy’s music is a euphoric blast of technicolour, reminiscent of the best moments of Animal Collective or The Beta Band.

In the case of Final Weapon, the band combine a lyrical thread of nuclear disaster and apocalypse inducing military experimentation, with a soundtrack that’s the middle ground of Neu and The Rapture. The constant drive of the rhythm sections and the urgent pulse of the keyboard, sit in gorgeous contrast to the easy vocal delivery, as they sing of the sky being torn, “open wide”, as they joyously perform their soundtrack to the end of the world. Throughout the track there’s a sense of unravelling as the song’s initially clear structure seems to melt into freeform chaos, mirroring the chaotic tumult at the heart of the song’s lyrical collapse.

Read on for Emma from the band’s recollections on the making of, and inspiration behind, the accompanying video, then check out the video below.

We all filmed the video together over the course of a day at my house – we like to keep things as DIY as possible, if we can.

The song “Final Weapon” weaves a lot of disparities together. It’s got a frantic beat but a laid back, dreamy vocal delivery. It’s a fairly poppy and upbeat track, but the lyrical themes are rather serious: nuclear weapons testing and military experimentation. The video relates more to the overall feeling of the song – on an initial surface level everything is bright, colorful fun, but pretty soon things frantically devolve in front of your eyes, and more disturbing images start to appear.

On a very basic level, the idea for the “Final Weapon” video was a take on “squish” videos, or any of the “satisfying” viral videos that pop up in your various social media feeds. I’ve always found something inherently unnerving about those. We were hoping it would make for a fun video to watch, I knew for sure it would be a fun video to make, and most importantly I thought it would capture the feeling the song gives me – like a psychedelic Dadaist birthday party spinning out of control.

Emma Maatman from Dummy

Mandatory Enjoyment is out October 22nd via Trouble In Mind. For more information on Dummy visit https://notdummy.bandcamp.com/.