Jams and Tea

For this week's episode of Jams & Tea NOW, Jake and Ryley are discussing their favorite songs on the shorter side, with five picks each that run under two minutes long - how can such a brief track deliver so much power, and what did they choose? Also up for discussion today is Jack Harlow's reinvention with the brief but pointed JACKMAN, plus new singles from PJ Harvey and Say Anything...

This week we're excited to bring fresh and comprehensive reviews of two records you should hear - first up is the long-awaited and re-invigorated comeback of techno pop legends Everything But the Girl with the striking FUSE, and following that is a deep-dive into perhaps the best debut of 2023 so far, US Youth Poet Laureate Kara Jackson's stunning and enveloping WHY DOES THE EARTH GIVE US...

For this week's NOW episode, in lieu of a new release reviews video this week, Ryley, Jake, and Morgan are talking all things Metallica, particularly as it pertains to their new double album 72 Seasons, and how Metallica have attempted to age gracefully even as their career navigates staggering highs and lows. Plus, we also talk at length about Frank Ocean's disastrous Coachella performanc...

For this week's Record Club, Jake and Ryley are celebrating one of the finest piano rock and singer-songwriter records of the 2000s, Ben Folds' solo debut Rockin' the Suburbs. Aside from its tongue-in-cheek gentle parody of nu-metal machismo in its famous title track, the album is stacked with surprisingly emotional and cleverly characterized stories of pain, connection, and understand...

For this week's NOW episode, Jake and Ryley are discussing albums they love that are kept from perfection by one inexcusable dud track. How much can one bad song detract from a great album experience, and what are the examples that are hardest to forgive? Let us know what you'd choose in the comments on YouTube! Also up for discussion this week are excellent new albums from Tim Hecker and...

"Americana" and "indie rock" as music descriptors are as widespread as they are near-meaningless in the proliferation of genre-bending artists in the 2020s, but Wednesday with their stellar breakthrough RAT SAW GOD, and Ruston Kelly with his melancholic and pristine THE WEAKNESS, fuse the two together in very distinct but effective ways, resulting in a highlight of the year for...

It's been seven months since our last full discography breakdown video, and we're back with a vengeance storming our way through all eight major-label studio albums from one of the most inescapable artists of the last decade, Lana Del Rey. Joined by first-time guest Coffee, we dive into Lana's artistic identity and the various stages in the development of her sound, style, and themes f...

It's finally here - the first full-length LP from legendary indie supergroup Boygenius, THE RECORD, and today we're digging in to see how it holds up, and to try and reconcile the divisive response between critics versus casual listeners as to whether it holds up to the solo work of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus. Let us know what you think of The Record in the comments on Y...

For this week's Record Club, Ryley is joined by Zach of the First Watch podcast to discuss one of the most innovative and important bands of the century so far, THE KNIFE, and to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their climactic double-album magnum opus SHAKING THE HABITUAL. Join us as we break down and discuss everything the album does sonically, thematically, and conceptually, and why it rem...

JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown teamed up recently for the much-hyped (and widely beloved) new collaborative record SCARING THE HOES, and while it captures some of the fundamentals of what make them captivating presences in their own right, the album itself leaves something to be desired for us. On the other hand, the new record from Depeche Mode, MEMENTO MORI (their first since the death of founding me...

For this week's Record Club, Jake, Ryley, and Morgan are breaking down Fleetwood Mac's brilliant, hugely successful but still overlooked 1987 classic TANGO IN THE NIGHT - the final studio record on which all core members would actively contribute, and a tumultuous album which houses a number of the group's most enduring standards. How does the album hold up today, and what do its songs...

For this week's NOW episode we're flipping the script on last week and celebrating our favorite albums that run under 30 minutes (some of which are even shorter than 20!), taking the time to talk about what makes these records work and feel complete at such a tiny runtime, and how artists can use brevity to leave a lasting impact. We also discuss at length the new album from M83, talk abou...

We're back a day early with two deep dives into two huge and celebrated new releases from big artists! First up is the long-awaited return of 100 Gecs with the ridiculous sugar high of the absurd, memetic miasma of 10,000 Gecs. After that we unpack the arc and themes within the work of the brilliant Yves Tumor, whose new album takes their soul-searching interrogations of identity and self-disc...

For this week's NOW episode, Jake and Ryley are discussing their favorite albums that approach the 2 hour mark and sometimes go way longer - how can a band justify such an absurd length for a record, and what makes the best super-long albums work? Join us as we dig into these questions and more. Plus we also discuss our thoughts on the 2023 Oscar winners, the abysmal new albums from Morgan Wal...

For this week's new release reviews, Jake and Ryley dive deep into the poetic, thoughtful, irreverent, and deeply funky explorations of sexuality and gender in Fever Ray's stellar new album RADICAL ROMANTICS, as well as pondering the bizarre and elusive career arc of Miley Cyrus with her new album ENDLESS SUMMER VACATION. Let us know what you think of either of these records in the comment...

Once again in the Record Club series we're excited to dig into another seminal record from the legendary Tom Waits, and this time it's none other than his 1985 masterpiece RAIN DOGS. Join us as we unpack the unique stylistic shift, memorable and idiosyncratic lyrical topics and themes, and overall structure of one of Tom's most celebrated and revered works, and why it lives up to the hype. Let us...

This week's NOW discussion is a reversal of last week's, where we talked about regrettable records from beloved artists. This week we put a more positive spin on the topic and try our best to celebrate when artists or bands we typically hate suddenly win us over with one surprising new release. Let us know what your picks would be in the comments on YouTube. Check out Team Tremolo here: https://te...

The theme is self-love this week, as the vastly different but surprisingly spiritually similar new albums from Slowthai and Kali Uchis espouse the virtues of putting yourself first, and the consequences of leaving others behind. This is especially true for Slowthai, whose new album UGLY sees the British rapper reinventing his sound and deepening his ambitions. Kali Uchis's beautiful new album Red...

On this week's NOW episode, Jake and Ryley are making up for lost time with a bumper episode catching up with big albums from Model/Actriz, Caroline Polachek, Skrillex, and more, as well as discussing the latest in music news, album anniversaries, and important single drops. Our main topic of discussion though is reflecting on what has to happen, and how it happens, for great bands to make truly t...

For this week's new release reviews, Jake and Ryley tackle the frustrating new album from Damon Albarn's legacy pop collective Gorillaz, CRACKER ISLAND, before digging deep into the intense, brash, and colorful new album from genre-defying act Algiers: SHOOK. Let us know what you think of these albums in the comments on YouTube !   0:00 Gorillaz - Cracker Island 42:35 Algiers - Shook

For this week's episode of Jams & Tea NOW we're excited to dig into some of our all-time favorite film soundtracks (not scores!) and to discuss how a great soundtrack can elevate not just the movie in question but also the songs themselves. We also briefly talk through new releases from Kelela and Liv.e, we discuss the new Lana Del Rey single, acknowledge Rihanna and the Kinks' ongoing twitter...

For this week's new release reviews, we're excited to dig into the long-awaited return of Paramore with the galvanizing THIS IS WHY, as well as the dense and gorgeous drones of indie legends Yo La Tengo's stunning 17th album THIS STUPID WORLD. Join us as we discuss what makes these records stand out and let us know what you think in the comments on YouTube !   0:00 Paramore - This Is Why&nbsp...

This week on Record Club, Ryley and Jakob are discussing the latter's favorite band, the eclectic, irreverent, and always fun They Might Be Giants, zeroing in on their sophomore record, 1988's masterful Lincoln. They break down many of the band's biggest songs and talk about everything that makes the writing of John Linnell and John Flansburgh so exciting and emotional, and why they're such an eas...

For this week's NOW episode we're celebrating Valentine's Day by counting down our all-time favorite love songs - the songs that help us to express and understand the world's most powerful feelings. We also talk the latest in music news including the Grammys, the latest developments in a torrid beef saga between Roger Waters and David Gilmour, Steve Albini's Steely Dan comments, David Guetta's Emi...

For our latest set of new release reviews, Jake and Ryley are catching up on two of the year's most jubilant, intensely exciting, original, and addictive albums so far: Young Fathers' incandescent banger collection HEAVY HEAVY, and The Go! Team's diverse, funky, and exuberant GET UP SEQUENCES PART TWO. Let us know what you think of either or both of these albums in the comments on YouTube ! 0:00 T...