Kevin Bronson on June 10th, 2022

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L.A. quintet Dummy have all the markings of future cult heroes. Makers of minimal music with maximum artistic breadth, they released their debut full-length, “Mandatory Enjoyment,” last fall.

Mandatory listening, if you ask us — it leaps tall subgenres in a single bound, drawing its lineage (though not direct) to boundary-pushers such as the Feelies, Stereolab, Neu, Cocteau Twins, Aphex Twin and Rocketship. The sounds of krautrock, shoegaze, proto-punk, jangling psych, drone and downtempo electronica are all in play, at times overtly and at others merely a sonic suggestion, leaving listeners on tenterhooks for Dummy’s plaintive though often-cutting lyrics.

The band — Joe Trainor, Emma Maatman, Mark Greshowak, Nathan O’Dell and Alex Ewell — returns today with two new songs via the Sub Pop Singles Club Vol. 7.

“Mono Retriever” drones not-so-merrily along with coed vocals taking a swipe at corporate greenwashing. Trainor explains it was inspired by ’60s baroque pop, along with a comment somebody made at show: “Dummy sounds like if Stereolab was a hardcore band.” Nice one. The dreamy B-side “Pepsi Vacuum” creates an itch with oceanic synth, then scratches it with a chug-chug of loops and samples and, eventually, a sheet of distortion.

Are we not mesmerized? Yes, we are.

||| Stream: “Mono Retriever” and “Pepsi Vacuum”

||| Live: Dummy opens for Horsegirl on three SoCal dates: July 21 at Zebulon; July 22 at the Echo; and July 23 at the Constellation Room.

||| Previously: “Final Weapon,” “Dummy EP” and “EP 2”

||| Also: Stream “Mandatory Enjoyment” in its entirety