Pitchfork

Photo by Fredrik Egerstrand

Put on José González's second album-- the forthcoming In Our Nature, due September 25 from Mute-- and you may notice a few things. First, the guy certainly knows his way around six acoustic strings. Second, Nick Drake fans are going to love this. And third, Mr. González sounds just a wee bit pissed off this time out.

"How low/ Are you willing to go/ Before you reach all/ Your selfish goals?" asks José to kick off the record. Later, on the first song's chorus, he chides, "Someday you'll be up to your knees/ In the shit you seek."

So why the spite? "Thinking of humanity, I think there's a lot of stuff that's just stupid, and kind of makes you lose your hope in humanity. " José told Pitchfork via phone yesterday. "You just have to open the papers or watch the news; it's like, history repeats itself and we're not learning from past mistakes, and we're not paying attention to what some really clever people are saying."

According to González, that opening track, "How Low", isn't directed at anyone in particular-- but it readily applies to more than a few figures out there.

"I had many different things in mind," said José. "It's one of those lyrics where I think whoever listens to it will not identify himself as the person who is being talked to. But one of the things I had in mind was kind of-- a media conglomerate [head] like Rupert Murdoch; we have similar conglomerates in the media in Sweden.

"But I think you can apply it to anyone who's driving his or her own agenda too far just to earn more money, or to get more power, or to serve some sort of selfish need."

Such as...a certain American president? "That's funny because I didn't think about him," González said, "but then when I was recording it, [the gentleman] who was mixing it with me was like, 'Yeah this song is about Bush, right?' And at that point I was kind of [thinking], 'Yeah, well, it fits pretty well.' It's nice that it actually works using general terms instead of specific. It can be used in many different places and different times."

To address greed and numerous other issues, José often invokes the second person on In Our Nature. "It's a lyrical position that I find interesting. But it's more about the feeling I get from that sort of lyric. I can be an angry person, or...

"It's always been kind of a struggle trying to avoid talking about myself, but I do want to talk about [issues]-- to try to find a sense of urgency. So far, I haven't found any other way."

Urgency and the soapbox are nothing new to José, who came up playing in a hardcore band, first called Renaissance and later named Sweet Little Sinister. "I was playing bass and was writing some lyrics, and the funny thing with hardcore music is that it's part of the music to scream. So you need angry lyrics. Back in the day it was [about] being angry at the whole animal industry and being angry at stupid dictators or, I don't know-- you had to find something to be angry about.

"And I feel like, in the sense of music as art, I think anger is something that attracts me a lot. It attracts me more than love songs. And a guy like [Rage Against the Machine's] Zach de la Rocha is one of my favorite artists in that sense."

Despite the bile and apparent heaviness of In Our Nature's subject matter and overall tone, González still manages to close the album on a lighter note. "I just let the tape roll and then we laughed. It's kind of like taking off the seriousness of the album-- I mean, it's fun to be angry, and again artistically it's something that I like, but I think it's cool to have a loose relationship to your art and not be so attached and serious."

Laughter and all, the album clocks in at exactly 33 minutes and 33 seconds. Coincidence? "I wanted it to be half of 666!" said José with a chuckle. "No, I'm just kidding. I didn't even know that. Wow, that's pretty cool."

On Nature, José's more didactic offerings are offset by the impressionism of the album's centerpiece, a cover of Massive Attack's "Teardrop".

"It's just a really good song," claimed José. "I love the melody, the way she [Elizabeth Fraser] sings, and I love their production, so it's been like touching a holy grail in a way. I got the same feeling with [The Knife's] 'Heartbeats' and [Joy Division's] 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'-- they're all very good songs from scratch. I felt a bit awkward doing that version, but since I've been playing it live I've felt more and more comfortable with recording it and eventually putting it on the record."

Indeed, it was that cover of the Knife's "Heartbeats" that put José on the map in some parts of the world, when it appeared in a Sony Bravia commercial. Since then, he's gone on to sell some 700,000 copies of his debut album, Veneer, around the globe. The success, however, began in González's home country the old-fashioned way.

"In Sweden there was no commercial," he said. "It was purely because of radio and television that started playing it a lot, so basically it was people with programming power that liked the music. Looking back I feel it's really nice that it actually happened without a commercial at first, and actually without 'Heartbeats' also-- it was 'Crosses' that was picked up.

"Kind of gives me comfort that I can actually do stuff on my own," José concluded with a laugh.

Still, González calls the Knife's Silent Shout and Deep Cuts (on which the original "Heartbeats" appears) two of his "all-time Swedish favorites."

"I don't know them that well, but we're definitely friends and I wanted to make sure they were OK with my cover before I released the album, so I went to them with a CD-R and I asked them to give their opinion."

Did they put on masks or relay their opinion via a creepy recording? "No, they were very normal."

González will also soon work with director Andreas Nilsson-- known for his video and multimedia work with the Knife-- to create a two-part suite of music videos for In Our Nature tracks "Down the Line" and "Killing for Love". (Mute will also release a digital single for "Down the Line" on August 14).

"It's based on a cartoon by Jim Woodring, about this character called 'Manhog' [from Woodring's comic Frank] who is half-man, half-pig," José explained. "This Manhog gets hit on the head and gets a really big bump, and because of this he starts hallucinating and gets really spiritual and sees signs everywhere, and when he sees me he starts worshiping me-- I don't know what I'm going to do exactly."

José also plans to record a few B-sides for In Our Nature-- one of which may be a cover of Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy"-- in the coming days.

Of late he's been enjoying the music of El-P ("It's very good; I like the noisy hip-hop.") and Gothenburg trio Little Dragon, whose members-- including singer Yukimi Nagano, José's girlfriend-- all contribute to In Our Nature.

Catch José at several festivals this summer, or in the U.S. this fall with Savath & Savalas.

Olé José:

06-28 Gothenburg, Sweden - Accelerator Festival
06-30 Stockholm, Sweden - Accelerator Festival
07-06 Ghent, Belgium - Cactus Festival
07-08 Istanbul, Turkey - International Jazz Festival
07-24 Lyon, France - Les Nuits de Fourvière Festival
07-29 Westmeath, Ireland - Midland
08-11 Tokyo, Japan - Summer Sonic
08-12 Osaka, Japan - Summer Sonic
08-21 New York, NY - Spiegeltent
09-27 New York, NY - Gramercy Theater *
09-28 New York, NY - Gramercy Theater #
09-29 Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall of Williamsburg
09-30 Boston, MA - Paradise #
10-01 Philadelphia, PA - World Café #
10-02 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club #
10-04 Chicago, IL - Park West #
10-05 Portland, OR - Aladdin Theater #
10-07 Seattle, WA - Showbox #
10-08 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall #
10-09 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall #
10-10 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre #
10-12 Denver, CO - Bluebird Theatre *
10-13 Minneapolis, MN - Fine Line Music Café *

* with James Blackshaw
# with Savath & Savalas