The name Jose Gonzales just screams out SWEDEN. When Jose Gonzales is a Swedish dude who like Sia (who is somewhere on this blog) has branched out successfully from the group Zero 7, which is where most people have heard of him. Of course, you had to have heard of Zero 7 first. Well, even if you haven’t, Jose Gonzales’s In our Nature is a perfect little CD.
The album art looks like he asked Sia if he could use the same designer from her Color the small one or Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes. It is white and naturalistic.
The music is vocal and guitar orientated and nothing else. His voice is active and charged, but at the same time melodic like Joao Gilberto. There are 10 songs and they all work. It lasts for about 30 minutes. There are no throw away songs. It’s all good!
Gonzales whose parents are from Argentina before moving to Gothenburg Sweden maintains a bit of a Latin American classical feel. His vocals, melodies or energy certainly do not. He neither does he have that American folk singer feel too. His vocals are smooth and consistent; almost calming, but at the same time don’t put you to sleep. Still, they are very chill.
The lyrics seems conscious of the human experience and it that way you could say that is a throw back to the 60’s, but it isn’t. The sixties were an angry time. The music is looking for peace not just socially, politically, but internal. No more shock and awe for peace.
The music just goes by very quickly and enjoyable. You can put it on do something; feel calmer and it’s over before you know it. So, you put it on again, and the same experience. It sounds like a perfect C/D to put on a Sunday morning with that cup of coffee and the paper.
Even though the vocals are the lead in most popular music since the beginning of music, here the guitar offers the most emotion and the vocal are more in a support role. Tchaikovsky once said that guitar (classical) was like a whole orchestral in one instrument, and that is certainly true here.
Gentle would be the word to describe the feel. Gentle in its approach to bigger and non-gentle topics. I would say that In our Nature is one of the best albums of the decade.
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