Jose Gonzalez: In Our Nature

An album to lull you to sleep and trouble your dreams

Born in Sweden to Argentine parents, José González’s music hews closer to the sounds of his ancestral continent than those of his native country. The sad, nylon-string sway of album opener “How Low,” the gentle tug of “The Nest,” “Down the Line’s” sideways bossa nova—they all waft by with a melancholy lilt reminiscent of South American troubadours like Caetano Veloso and Eduardo Mateo. But González’s words, sung in his whispy, intimate voice, carry the arctic chill of his homeland, betraying the calming music with a pervasive, accusatory darkness: “How low / Are you willing to go / Before you reach all your senseless goals”; “When it all comes down / Cycling trivialities.” In Our Nature’s fingerpicked reveries, sonic gentility and lugubrious vibe might tug at your eyelids, but be warned: Its heavy-hearted sentiments are hardly the stuff of dreams.