Michael O'Connor is a guitarist, singer, and songwriter living in Colorado. For decades he has played and recorded with musicians including Ray Wylie Hubbard, Slaid Cleaves, Adam Carroll, Susan Gibson, Terri Hendrix, and Shelley King. A lifetime of hard-won experience on- and off-stage has allowed Michael a rare insight into the world of the rough, the faithless, the romantic, and the unlucky, all of whom find refuge in his songs. Michael has toured throughout the United States and overseas. He has released six albums, and is continuing to release new music.

"...one of the best songwriters I've heard in 20 or 30 years." Michael Martin Murphey

There’s a lot going on under the hood of Matt Jones’ unlabored Americana songcraft and his baritone delivery. Adopted from Brazil and raised primarily in Houston, Texas by American parents, Jones’ perspective as a Latino-American is ever-present in his writing, as is the looming specter of Jones’ lifelong struggles with depression and anxiety. Throughout Demons, Jones explores both the nuances of his multicultural identity and his mental health issues, while stylistically maintaining a balance between haunted old-world source material and a contemporary sense of selfhood and style play. The end result is an organic, complex, and unpredictable sound all his own.   

The guiding light of Tom Waits hovers over Demons as it does over essentially all progressive roots music of the last 35 years. Jones, however, approaches his subjects with a gravity and formality more in line with the raw narrative finesse of Nick Cave than the carnivalesque surrealism of Waits. Magical realism and mystical imagery pervade these stories of outlaws and obsessions. Dramatic personae and unfiltered confession take turns at the microphone until finally they are indistinguishable. Demons conjures a timeless, insular world of dark folk myth without conceding to the stylized and the retro. Sonically, Jones takes influences ranging from Langhorne Slim and Shovels & Rope to Beirut & The Decemberists, wringing out their most affecting qualities and distilling them into a unique, powerful blend of expressive folk-rock.

Libby Koch is a Texas Americana recording artist.

Indie Music Executive Producer/Backer.  Country and Americana.  Let's work together!

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