José González
Veneer

THE REVIEW

Sometimes there is music that slips over you like rain, drumming in your head, leaving you with a sense of mystery, a sort of resigned anger, an inconsolable sense of desolation like the apartment blocks on the outskirts of any city. A sense of cold like the rain that taps on your window in the noisy metropolitan silence of any ordinary night. A sense of loneliness among a crowd that doesn't understand and doesn't want to understand you. The awareness of having only oneself, a guitar, and silence, so much silence, to fill.
This is perhaps the feeling that more than any other is communicated by the music of José González: unease. A feeling that clings to you with every replay like the acrid smoke of a cigarette, that sticks to your heart like an indistinct but concrete, tangible discomfort, sometimes unbearable. And it's certainly no coincidence that José cites among his sources of inspiration the Joy Division of Ian Curtis. But it's also inevitable that while listening to José, the name Nick Drake reappears like a ghost. And also the presence and teaching of Joao Gilberto, and his approach to voice and guitar.

Because "Veneer," José's debut, is almost entirely here: a voice and a guitar. Very few percussions ("Stay In The Shade"), some handclaps ("Lovestain"), a grim and sinister trumpet ("Broken Arrows"). The rest of the album is the six strings that tune in almost every track to Latin rhythms stripped of any carnal and dancing glow. Latinness that doesn't warm but like a will-o'-the-wisp launches icy reflections of an unsettling discomfort. Simple and very brief themes, repeated obsessively and claustrophobically. And the lyrics. Bare, essential. Speaking of crosses, thoughts that won't go away, rain that washes away. And maybe these are José's best moments, those songs where more than any other the fragility of his unripe voice, and perhaps his soul, shines through. In "Remain," with its fiery Latin dance rhythm suspended between guitar surges and that prayer-like text that no one will ever hear, let alone answer. In the sense of emptiness conveyed by "Crosses," in the singing that chokes in the throat in "Hints." And in the splendid folk reinterpretation of "Heartbeats." Stripped of the Knife's electro-pop rhythm, this is perhaps truly the most successful moment of an album that, as a whole, is truly accomplished. The guitar bursts into soft sounds of a living, pulsating heart, while the voice fades away in the silences of resignation as the memory appears like a specter that can no longer be held: We had a promise made/We were in love...

An extraordinary debut for the not-yet-thirty-year-old singer from Gothenburg, a Swede with roots that delve into the heart of Argentina. A debut gripped tightly between the cold Nordic beauty and the hot Latin rhythm. But above all, a debut imprisoned in the darkest unease and fears of the metropolitan man. To listen to. Absolutely.