Dummy Ache: Portland's Indie Psych Gaze Trio Goes Big on Debut LP 'Shakers'

Some bands take decades to find each other. Dummy Ache took about fifteen years of friendship first. The Portland, Maine trio spent their twenties and early thirties cutting their teeth in rowdy Brooklyn DIY bands, then each escaped New York in their own time and settled in coastal New England. When restlessness finally won out over self-consciousness, they formed the band they should have formed all along. Their debut LP, Shakers, arrives November 6, and it was recorded in just two days.

That speed shows up in the record in the best way. Shakers was cut at the end of August 2026 at Acadia Recording Company in Portland, engineered and mixed by Todd Hutchinson with Alice Anderson assisting, and mastered by Carl Saff. The band describes their sound as "indie psych gaze nonsense," which is about right: part shoegaze, part 90s indie rock, part psych, with forlorn melodies that get ambitious, humble, and very loud. You will hear echoes of Yo La Tengo, Galaxie 500, Dinosaur Jr., Slowdive, and Pavement, but this is no nostalgia exercise. These are songs built from hard-earned sensitivity and old-friend chemistry, and they sound like it.

The lineup tells the story. Max Goransson plays guitar and sings, Sam Rich plays Bass VI and sings, and Rich DiGregorio plays drums, backing vocals, organ, and, fittingly, shakers. Goransson and Rich share primary songwriting duties, and some of the songs started out as acoustic country chord progressions before evolving into something stranger. Reruns of the 1990s TV series Baywatch Nights were often playing in the background while they wrote, and the band jokes that Shakers is a record of spooky beach crime songs. Listen to the first single and you will hear exactly what they mean.

https://dummyache.bandcamp.com/

Dummy Ache play Shakers in full at their release show at The Press Room in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on Thursday, November 5, then head to Brooklyn on November 6 and Philadelphia on November 7.

Start here

1. "Baywatch Nights". The seven-plus-minute first single, a psychedelic ghost story that builds from calm to a fuzz-laden climax.
2. "Tilly". The second streaming track, and the shorter, sharper side of the band at three and a half minutes.
3. Shakers (2026). The full eight-track debut LP, out November 6 and available to pre-order now.

Where to follow

• Bandcamp: https://dummyache.bandcamp.com/