Dummy with Maral and DJ Set by Peaking Lights

Dummy is a rock band from Los Angeles comprised of Alex Ewell, Emma Maatman, Nathan O’Dell, and Joe Trainor. Their debut full-length Mandatory Enjoyment (Trouble in Mind) arrived in late 2021, becoming one of the year’s sleeper hits and garnering praise from Pitchfork, Stereogum, and more. Coming out of lockdown, the band spent two years touring in support of the record, and it is this transformational experience that pulses through Free Energy, the exhilarating 2024 follow-up to Mandatory Enjoyment.

Maral’s sonic palette incorporates a collage of Iranian Classical & Folk samples and explores genres of experimental electronic production such as noise, punk/post-punk, and dub. Maral has released two critically acclaimed records, Ground Groove (2022) and Push (2020) on Leaving Records. She has collaborated with artists such as Lee "Scratch" Perry, Panda Bear, Penny Rimbaud of Crass, Anika and more.

Peaking Lights the husband & wife duo of Aaron Coyes & Indra Dunis (aka A.C.I.D.) embody the beautiful, bedraggled spirit of psychedelic wanderlust. They’ve spent years traversing the globe, soaking up the sounds of distant lands and distilling them into a heady hallucinatory brew. Their music is a testament to the power of drift and discovery, a sonic tapestry woven from threads of dub, krautrock & electronic musics. But Peaking Lights’ sound is more than just a stylistic pastiche - it’s a deeply personal, almost mystical, expression of their own inner worlds. Like a later-day Captain Beefheart, Coyes’ guitar work is a marvel of squalling, effects-heavy abstraction, while Dunis’ vocals conjure the ghost of Nico, all detached cool and laconic mystery. Together, they create a music that’s both deeply rooted in psychedelic tradition, and yet, utterly their own - a true, freak-flag-flying original.