Jose Gonzelez

Plainly beautiful indie acoustic.  Jose Gonzalez taps into some visceral point in my brain that just makes me relaxed and pleased with the world.  Not a lot of flash in his music, it is generally just his voice, his classical-style guitar, and maybe a little other accompaniment.  Lots of hand claps or guitar body taps.  I saw him come through ACL Fest a few years ago with his side project, Junip, and liked that quite a bit as well.

His most recent album, Vestiges and Claws, is really very good from start to finish.  I don't need to dig deeply into it since I already did a few months ago, but I stand by my sense of immense pleasure derived from the album.  I gave you a look at the most popular track off the album at that time ("Every Age," which is a beauty), but the most popular track from that album now is another track, called "Leaf Off/ The Cave," which is also awesome, and a little more driving.

Something about that video just caught me right up in it.  Weird shots, but it trapped my attention for a couple of minutes.  Video of people expecting stills is always entertaining.  Great tune, almost 5.3 million listens on Spotify.

Before that 2015 album, Gonzalez released 2007's In Our Nature, 2007's Stay in the Shade EP, and 2006's Veneer.  He is Swedish, with his family being from Argentina, but it feels impossible to classify his music based on place.  After reading my review of Vestiges and Claws, my friend Noah reminded me that Gonzalez's music had been used heavily in the The Secret Life of Walter Mitty movie/soundtrack.  Which is likely why it sounds like something that would underscore a guy's search for meaning in this life.  In line with that, the most listened-to track on Spotify for Gonzalez is "Stay Alive," from that soundtrack, with 21.5 million listens:

That video is cleverly titled "The Secret Life of Jose Gonzalez" and has a feeling of some of the movie scenes.  I like it.  And the other song from the soundtrack that I remember, which was used to great effect in the trailer, is called "Step Out."  Here is the trailer (skip to 1:35 if you just want the song):

Makes that movie sound amazing, right?  I did like the movie, but that montage of scenes with that song behind it made it even more powerful.

His most listened to song other than the one above is from the 2006 album Veneer, and is called "Crosses."  With almost 20 million listens on Spotify, it dwarfs almost everything else in his catalog.

I mean, how damn pretty is that music?  I like his more recent stuff better, I think it sounds more full than the older, more basic stuff, but I still can't mess with any of it.  I've spent the last couple days just listening to his music and see no reason to stop.  So good.  I expect to go check out the live show.