JASON MATU

Jason Matu, the one and only folk singing lawyer of Bushwick, has lived many lives. Born in the Enchanted Mountains of Western, New York, where his closest neighbor was a quarter mile away and it was a cow, Matu’s journey took him to the suburbs of Cincinnati (Kentucky side), and then to the bluegrass, then to Brooklyn, where he currently resides–a wild ride for a country boy from the hills.

The grandson of Montana Matt, leader of the Polish Cowboys of Ellicottville, NY, a deep-seated love of music decreed to exist at the dawn of time by Mother Nature herself was awakened in Matu when he joined the band Varsovia in law school. He played bass and wrote songs in Lexington, Kentucky’s dream rock legends, Candidate. While in that group, he first started working with long-time producer and collaborator, Justin Craig, Grammy nominee and currently music director for another hit show. After Candidate failed to make him famous, Jason teamed up with Adam Kruckenberg to make music in the band Shapes on Tape. 

A series of tragedies and an intervening global pandemic kept Shapes on Tape on hiatus for quite some time. With nothing else to do, Jason Matu went on bike rides and wrote song after song. All the practice and free time made Matu’s voice far better than ever previously reasonably expected and Craig's prowess for all things musical—producing, mixing, and playing—helped lift Matu’s creative process to even greater heights since then. Thus, in 2021, Matu released his debut solo album, “Dumb Ecstatic Bliss,” to much acclaim and in 2022, his second album, “Different Love,” which was described as “a 2022 version of Tom Petty meets Flying Burrito Brothers meets The Byrds!”

“Dialogues Concerning the Mojo of Jason Matu” is his third album and the first that he produced himself. The title is an homage to Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, a transformative book in Matu’s life. The album consists of eleven tracks in dialogue with one another (Matu was born in the 11th month, and the album will be released on the 11th day of the month of rebirth, April.). The lyrics and music reflect on Matu’s lost mojo, and its recovery in the summer of 2022.