Mandatory Enjoyment

The Los Angeles band nods to various corners of psychedelic music while transcending its influences on this blissful and spacious debut album.

The Los Angeles five-piece meld the best of avant-garde and pop music.

After a listen to Dummy's debut album Mandatory Enjoyment, it's clear that the members of the band have done plenty of closer examination of the music of Germany in the 1970s and London in the early '90s, with a side trip to Slumberland (as in the record label.) The L.A. group has clearly applied the lessons of bands like Cluster and Neu!, who balanced avant-garde impulses with clear melodies, and groups such as Stereolab or early Broadcast, who applied some rhythmic thrust and sparkly songcraft to their layers of sound.

Dummy's full-length debut 'Mandatory Enjoyment' percolates with a mesmerizing, inescapable warmth—the best of its Krautpop niche this year.