There has long been an obsession with what the “future of music” looks like. How it will be constructed, perceived, analyzed, interacted with. So much brainpower is put into what’s next, because we always want to be one step ahead. Culturally prescient, enlightened, on the cutting edge. But what if you sidestep all that noise? What if a band, freed from the rat race and trendiness, embraces insularity to the point it somehow becomes the future? With do you love the color of the sky?, Dummy crafts the perfect anti-zeitgeist record, freezing you into their incorporeal moment of time.

If 2024’s Free Energy evoked the spirit of Madchester and the optimism of the rave, then Dummy’s newest couches itself in a lyrical skepticism that recalls the best of post-rock and drone while playfully adorned in jubilant pop hues. With songs that touch on Earth’s climate degradation, A.I. and the devaluation of art, and how we’ve been conditioned into accepting the surveillance state, do you love the color of the sky? is their most politically trenchant record, and yet their most inviting.

Don’t worry about the heavy themes though; do you love the color of the sky? straight up rips.

Despite all the allusions to futurism, Dummy are a classic band. Not in the retrofetishist, nostalgia- trapping sense, but in their work ethic and commitment to the music. It stands to reason, then, that their latest release has also completely shucked the idea of being recreated cleanly in the live setting. Drummer Ewell acknowledges that performances might go “off the rails” with the amount of samples, loops, delays, and pedals strewn throughout do you love the color of the sky?, but that they also “want to push the limits” of what’s achievable. As guitarist Trainor observes, studio recordings and live performances are “different sides to the same Dummy coin,” noting that while future touring will “involve more tech,” their vehemently “anti-laptop on stage” stance celebrates precision and letting their frayed edges show.

“Making music shouldn’t be fun.” It’s a haughty claim, but when Dummy jokingly asserts this, it comes from a sentiment of earnestness and true love for the game. The blood, sweat, and tears of ‘putting in the work’ is what propels do you love the color of the sky? to a triumph—a byproduct of shedding skins through live performance. It’s not a vast departure from their discography, unmistakably them, and yet constitutes a creative leap forward which almost sounds effortless from the group. It’s a treat to witness a band this creatively in-tune with themselves, whose experiments and ideas always hit, who, when they describe a concept, actually stick the landing. Maybe the future of music comes with the type of deep self-actualization Dummy possesses.

What a time to be alive, indeed.