Ryan Dillon

Alex Ewell, Emma Maatman, Nathan O’Dell, Joe Trainor, and Lance Umble are Dummy, a hard-to-define Los Angeles-based outfit. Centered on creative freedom rather than a single genre or a mix of influences, Dummy has moved through a successful debut and a captivating sophomore effort without stumbling over potholes dug by comparison.

It has been six long, complex, dangerous, and monumental years since The Avalanches reared their innovative minds over the gates to check in on everyone. The world was a much different place when the sample-loving electronic duo released their last studio effort, 2020’s We Will Always Love You. Ironically, the space-inspired odyssey from over half a decade ago proved prophetic as the world entered an era where escapism became the only route to sanity. We Will Always Love You tackled topics like mortality and one’s place in the universe. Global shutdowns and cultural unrest after the album’s release stirred up these questions, creating a soundtrack for a lost time seemingly by accident.

With the pace at which time seems to fly into one open window and right out the next, it is unbelievable that the autumn air is already pulling the sun back behind the horizon so early in our evenings. Nonetheless, work remains, and the team at the Ol’ Caustic Factory is hyperaware of their role: churn out the greatest hits of the past seven days and deliver them to others waiting for the same thing. This week, following the prolific trend in 2026, features a myriad of rejuvenating vocals, atmosphere-altering rock, urgent messaging, and slow-burning jazz from another dimension. This diverse list isn’t by design; our employees are just grateful to live in a time when so much innovation is driving every color of music.

If you’ve been on the internet over the past couple of weeks, you may have noticed singer/songwriter/producer Michael Kiwanuka’s name appearing more often than usual, with both good and bad news. Coming off the wild success of several albums produced by Inflo and Danger Mouse, two of the more sought-after, celebrated producers of the time, all the tours and festival appearances that go along with hit albums, and the critical acclaim and media praise most musicians fall short of despite a tireless work ethic. Everything moved at the speed of a runaway train, leaving Kiwanuka as the lone passenger, hanging on for dear life as the boxcars chugged from one triumph to the next. Only recently, though, did the whites of the artist’s knuckles begin to show.

Over a decade into his recording career, Rayland Baxter has long been cemented as one of country’s most thoughtful songwriters and brightest stars. Proving an unwavering dedication to craft rather than cashing in on the genre’s recent explosion up the charts, Baxter’s discography is filled with twangy gems that glisten with authenticity. Recently, though, the artist’s beloved art form has been infiltrated by opportunistic serpents, slithering around tropes and squeezing the life out of tradition for a measly handful of views. Baxter, as always, seems less focused on the world around him and more on finding his role in it, a true troubadour with a wandering spirit and a penchant for introspection- and it sounds like our hero has finally found home.

From the start of his more than three-decade career, Ishmael Butler has been in the business of world-building. From his innovative fusion of jazz and Hip-hop with Digable Planets to his rebirth as an electronic experimentalist under the moniker Shabazz Palaces, Butler has achieved longevity driven by his commitment to expanding his sonic horizons. Although thirty-five years in, the question of “where could he go next” begins to rise. How many ideas can one head hold? How much evolution could one man go through, and how many worlds could be built on the back of one man’s creativity?

On Friday, October 23, De La Soul will continue pushing their discography on your local streaming service with the 30th Anniversary edition of their seminal 1996 LP, Stakes Is High. The now-classic album is a wealth of hard-hitting, jazzy Hip-hop that saw the trio leaning towards something more ominous, detailing the precarious position Posdnuos, Maseo, and Trugoy the Dove were in at the time. As the trio watched what they believed was the burning of their beloved Hip-hop, they pieced together a statement piece that called for something more thoughtful, and thirty years after its initial release on July 2, 1996.

It is a beautiful day for some new music; then again, isn’t it the music that evokes that beauty? A gloomy day can turn into a cosmic journey when the

Very few albums can claim they created a moment, and even fewer can claim they defined a genre. These albums have longevity and impact: they set the tone for a generation and carried it into the next with little tension or pressure. These albums not only shape the music they contain, but also expand the minds of those who wouldn’t typically listen to Hip-hop, Motown, or Jazz. Albums like Illmatic and

The soul music renaissance, a storied genre, has reached an interesting crossroads in recent years. One path leads to repetition, not in a good or bad sense, but to a proper continuation of this iteration of soul. The other, though, signals innovation, pushing the same forward-thinking approach that made the colorful soul scene we have today. This is not the first scene to see its inevitable decline begin to manifest sooner than expected, and the bygone reinventions of music past have provided something of a blueprint that erects a third lane in this fork in the road, one that leads to a higher plane of creativity, free of expectations.