“Down the Line“
from the album In Our Nature
2007
iTunes
The tension between cool Latin rhythm and whispered polemic exemplifies Jose Gonzalez’s new outward turn on his entrancing second album, In Our Nature.
The Swedish singer and guitar-magic-maker created a quiet sensation with his debut Veneer and first two American tours, which included a stop at Madison’s Union Terrace last spring. Audiences were instantly captivated by his hushed, fragmented lines of simple but enigmatic poetry, revealed bit by bit in chorus over a subtly shifting, rhythmic acoustic guitar. Gonzalez’s total mastery of his instrument allows an expressive dynamic range and chords that seek the farthest reaches of familiarity while never falling into dissonance.
All of this could, conceivably, get old, however, as the brooding singer-songwriter is a halfpenny-a-dozen. Gonzalez isn’t content to rest on his laurels, though, and In Our Nature shows a fierce, universally political voice that gives new life to Gonzalez’s pleasant melancholy.
“How low/ How low are you willing to go,” Gonzalez not asks, but states as a foregone conclusion on the album opener. A syncopated, bass string-buzzing marching riff accompanies Gonzalez’s merging of personal and political in the lines “Invasion after invasion/ This means war … Where to will you relocate/ Now that’s it’s war.”
Lest one think Gonzalez is simply detractor of current international politics, the dancing, guitar-body rapping “Down the Line” calls out from the perspective of both the colonizer and the colonized: “You’re doing the same mistake twice/ Making the same mistake twice.” Gonzalez’s subtle breaking of phrases, seen also in the next track: “What’s the point with a love that makes you/ Kill for” makes an old plea feel new, set against intractable and suspension-popping strumming.
The album’s rising action hits an early climax in the appearance of Gonzalez’s signature concert encore, a reinvention of Massive Attack’s “Teardrop.” The repetition and buried melody work in Gonzalez’s warm hands where they bored in the original’s rigid electronica structure, building to a heady peak and a brief hopeful note in an album about staving off the darkness.
The second half the album slows down, returning to the intimacy of Veneer. Two of these tracks, “Time to Send Someone Away” and “The Nest,” bring fresh ideas, like an easy African percussion background beat. But “Abram” and “Fold” rest on their still-entrancing lyrics, and their plodding melodies tire.
All is forgiven, however, upon the album’s rightful closer, “Cycling Trivialities.” Gonzalez, having attacked hypocrisy and cruelty on a global and interpersonal scale, now returns to the self. “So how’s it gonna be/ When it all comes down/ You’re cycling trivialities.” Gonzalez’s epiphany is matched by a tragically triumphant, upward-reaching guitar line, which is forced by the limits of song to back down and come to a false end. The beautiful but still connection between musician and listener is Jose Gonzalez’s love and loss.
There was always more than the “veneer” of Gonzalez’s guitar to his music, but it is clear now that the musician is stepping out of coffee bar introspection, down from sermons on the mount and into human nature