'The Gray Landscape' in atypical Strums fashion, defies genre by combining elements of Industrial layered Post Rock and Haunted Americana with a Gothic tinged Alt Folk twist

The Gray Landscape

Jason O'Donnell is an iconoclastic singer and songwriter with an edgy, modern style that deftly blends ghostly Rust Belt Americana, industrial folk, and space rock into heart-rending original songs. His upcoming album is set for a September 2020 release and is the kind of crucially important work that demolishes genres and defines careers. O'Donnell is a veteran of the Chicago music scene with an artistry forged in blood, sweat, and struggle. He’s been compared to Jeff Buckley, Chris Cornell, and Jeff Tweedy but carries too much of his own self in his pocket to be understood in such a simple way. 


Jason has already worked with an impressive list of artists and producers that includes Greg Suran (B-52's, Goo Goo Dolls), Louis Svitek (Ministry, Pigface), Guy Eckstine (Verve Records, Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson), Joe Babiak (Altitudes and Attitudes), Chris Steinmetz (Kiss, Paul Simon), Mark Needham (Chris Isaac, AC/DC, Fleetwood Mac), Mike Tholen (Ministry, Liz Phair, Matt Walker, Rick Rubin), JB Skye ('Shrapnel In The Heart' featuring renowned actor Michael Shannon) and, most recently, Bjorn Thorsrud (Smashing Pumpkins, Shania Twain, The Frogs). His lyrics reflect his own descent and redemption wrapped in urban legends and small town despair and his music grinds and soothes all at once. Strums is noise, clarity, and fervor at the same time, as if Jeff Buckley, Bukowski, Thurston Moore, and Son Volt suddenly became a singularity. “It's beautiful and ugly, comforting and horrific, a delicate balance between dissonance and consonance,” he says. 


Why does he do it? “The message is in the music,” O'Donnell says, “The music comes from beyond my limited ego space. I'm a humble vessel blessed to be utilized by a muse beyond my limited perception to create art. I can never allow myself, the vessel, to be more important than the expression that comes through it." Clearly an artist of high caliber and expansive vision, Jason O'Donnell is about to cut an emotive swath through a scene dominated by plastic. Anyone who cares about the future of songwriting needs to start listening today. 



Jason O'Donnell

Popular tracks