About Ruffled

Jet Rodel’s new album Ruffled (out Jan 9, 2026) is a clear-eyed, acoustic-centered reflection on aging, change, and the slow shaping force of time. Written and recorded largely in solitude at Dup Studios in Burnet, TX, Ruffled finds the Marble Falls songwriter turning toward stillness.

These are folk songs built around unadorned guitar and voice. Each track begins simply, offering space for Rodel’s melodies and stories to unfold at a natural pace. There’s a subtle warmth throughout, even in its lonelier corners. You hear it in lines like “I keep on moving when I should be sitting right next to you” or “These roads go nowhere half the time, but a map won’t teach you that.”

Thematically, Ruffled leans into transition—romantic, emotional, and spiritual. It’s not a breakup album, and it’s not a falling in love album, though there are tales of both throughout. It’s something gentler: the sound of someone mapping their own emotional topography.

Inspired by the lyrical guitars of Joni Mitchell and Riley Walker, Rodel leans into the power of restraint.

“I think I’ve emotionally balanced out,” he says. “I take things on the chin a little more now. Don’t get so caught up in emotions. Not blocking them out, but they roll off a little more than they used to.” 

These songs document emotional events with the perspective of time, like a seasonal creek carving limestone traces the preceding rain storms after the water has receded. And that’s the quiet message at the heart of Ruffled, that there is beauty in the passage of time.