DUMB

Three years after their standout collaboration on the 2022 track “Hollow,” singer-songwriter Emma Louise and producer Flume return with a full album that highlights how much the two Australian creators value unpredictable textures and approaches. Flume has built his career on bending the expected contours of big-tent dance music, while Louise dramatically pitched down her vocals for the entirety of her 2018 album *Lilac Everything*. On *DUMB*, the pair embrace such feats of flux in perfect harmony. The opening “All of the Worlds” contrasts Louise’s soft, digitally stuttered vocals with crunchy beats, before leaning into programmed melodies that evoke a rainbow of eight-bit video game sounds. Squelching flourishes and asides punctuate these tracks without overshadowing the sincere emotions behind what Louise is singing. On the beats-bruised piano ballad “Monsoon,” she asks over and over if the song’s subject thinks about her. As she similarly bares her soul on “Brand New,” her quiet confiding is countered with a pulse that grows ever more clubby and insistent with time. Not every track is laced with so much stimuli, however: “Stay” is the most streamlined turn here, with quieter melodic and rhythmic cues hugging close to Louise’s high, breathy pleas to figure things out tonight.