Jean Dawson piqued the interest of many with his 2020 sophomore album Pixel Bath, which expertly toed the line between hip-hop, pop-punk, and hyperpop. He’s now slated to tour with Brockhampton and even received a kind co-sign from pop-punk godfather Travis Barker, who said his music is “slept on.” Continuing to expand on the world he built around his debut effort, the musician offers an inside look at his dizzying dreams with his surreal “Dummy” video.
Dawson’s “Dummy” video, directed Mowgly Lee and Bradley Calder, opens with the musician awaking only to find himself still in a dreamlike state. With quick jump cuts that mimic the song’s hurried beat, the visual follows Dawson as he rides through the city in the dead of night before being transported to a vast meadow of golden flowers. The song itself mirrors the disorienting style of the visual as Dawson teeters between pop-punk-style refrains and melodic raps.
Dawson says of the song, “Every time someone tries to tell me about a dream they had it always feels like a run on sentence — ‘Dummy’ is a run on sentence.”
Ahead of the visual’s release, Dawson shared the mini-documentary Burnout, which gives insight to his creative process. “The older I get, the happier I get,” he explained in the film. “And I think that’s the opposite for people. Thankfully, I think it’s because I do the thing that I want to do. When we’re younger, I think we’re forced to do things that we don’t understand.”
Watch the “Dummy” video above and listen to his latest song, “Ghost*,” below.
Pixel Bath is out now via P+. Get it here.
