The title of Matt Jones' last album, released in March of 2012, was a telling one: "Half Poison, Half Pure."

That title was a reflection of the state of mind Jones was in when he was writing and recording the songs on that disc in 2011. At the time, "in my personal life, I felt like I was stuck between two worlds," he says. So, many of the songs were, generally speaking, about "not wanting to move backward, but not knowing what direction to go in.”

In this case, not wanting to "move backward" was a reference to "drinking every night, and then getting a DUI when I ran my car into a post" in July of 2011, he says. So, he quit drinking, "and once I did, after a while, I found I was making better decisions."

So, in the last year or so, he's felt like he's been in "a much better place," says Jones—and as a result, for the last several months, he's been prolifically writing new songs that he feels are among the best he's ever written.

One of those songs is "The Darkest Things," which "is going over really well," says Jones, of Ypsilanti, who performs at the Blind Pig on Saturday, backed by his band, The Reconstruction. "It's getting good reviews from the bloggers, and a ton of downloads, and radio play on local stations. I just knocked it out at home as a demo."

The present lineup of The Reconstruction is Jones and Greg McIntosh on guitars, Chad Pratt on drums, Serge Van der Voo on bass and Misty Lyn Bergeron on backing vocals. (Jones also plays drums in Bergeron's band, Misty Lyn and the Big Beautiful.)

"After being sober for a while, things cleared up for me, and I no longer felt I was half poison, and wasn't all stressed out like I used to be," says Jones. "The song is essentially about me, thinking that maybe there were other things I wanted to do besides play music, and feeling like I was drifting away from music."

But in the process of writing it, "the song turned me around in another direction," he says. "By the time it was finished, I was thinking, 'No, I still love this, there is nothing else I want to be doing besides writing songs and playing music.'"

Sonically, the song is more muted than most of the songs on "Half Poison," and marks a return to the more acoustic-based material he wrote and recorded prior to that album.

Over the last several months, "I just went nuts with writing," he says. "So now I have about 20 new songs, which is awesome, and most of it is not full-band stuff. It's also more acoustic, which is really nice.

"For a long time, Misty had been suggesting that I should just try to write songs that are more simple and have a point, that didn't have so many words, and not so much imagery. So, I finally did that, and it turned out to be kind of addicting, writing those kinds of songs."

Jones found that, when he began simplifying his melodies, lyrics and chord progressions, and when he was not also writing parts for other band members to play, "I found I could write all day long, and the songs came much easier."

In the past, one of Jones' biggest influences as a songwriter was Frank Zappa, who, as any Zappa fan knows, had an affinity for knotty, complex, intricate progressions and arrangements. And in addition to playing guitar and drums, Jones is also an accomplished ragtime-piano player. "And that music is complex, also—it's essentially folk music that is really complicated.

"That was always my instinct—to take folk music and make it more complicated, which is actually kind of insane," says Jones with a laugh. "I would write something simple, and then think, 'No, I need to find different words to say this, more complicated words.' It took me long time to figure out that the message is more important than the equation.

"So, now, I'm really happy that I'm writing songs without getting out the calculator, or having a rhyming dictionary or thesaurus. I like that I'm now focused on telling a story, in a way that's more conversational."

When he released "Half Poison" a year ago, he did it on a strictly-download basis, and considered releasing it later on vinyl. But, he eventually decided against the vinyl release. He also decided to let people “pay whatever they want for it—or pay nothing at all." Because, at the time, he was more interested in having his music reach more listeners than he was in how much money he could make from album sales.

"And that definitely turned out to be the case," he says. "It exceeded my expectations in that respect, in terms of reaching new people. I just wanted to get it out there and get it out of my system. Since so much of it was about feeling conflicted, I felt like I had a cold, so I was surprised that others wanted to catch it."

He also feels he made the right decision in letting people name their own price. "People who would have paid for it anyway paid a lot more than they had to—it wasn't uncommon for people to be paying $30 or $40 for it, and I'm still seeing that. It was people who already knew me, as well as people who didn't know me. The word-of-mouth for that album was pretty good."

And he released it via the comparatively low-profile Bandcamp.com site, not iTunes. "I think I just wanted to keep that record closer to my chest. I think I was way too sensitive about it, because the songs were so were personal. It felt like more of a 'clubhouse' thing."

However, having taken that approach with "Half Poison," he says he will release his next album—which he hopes to record during the summer—on CD: "After seeing a lot of people paying a lot more than they had to for 'Half Poison,' it made me feel like it was OK again to charge for my music."

Kevin Ransom is a free-lance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at KevinRansom10@aol.com.