Despite having only released three solo albums in 18 years, José González has consistently packed out the world’s most prestigious venues and garnered around a billion streams. He is a much-loved name in the music world, with tracks like “Heartbeats” and “Stay Alive” (from the soundtrack to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), among many others, immediately recognisable to listeners.
José was born in Gothenburg, Sweden, to parents who fled the military junta in Argentina in 1976. He grew up listening to Bob Marley, Michael Jackson and Latin folk, before joining rock and hardcore bands as a young man. It was in 2003 that he released his first solo recordings and was immediately snapped up by the fledgling Imperial Records.
Two years later he released his debut album, Veneer, the record that put him on the map, followed by 2007’s In Our Nature, with lyrics influenced by evolutionary biology and a conscious and ethical relationship to the natural world. Vestiges & Claws came in 2015, receiving widespread acclaim and winning the IMPALA Album of the Year Award.
Local Valley is José’s long-awaited fourth album, a project brimming with his bittersweet, pastoral colors and recorded in three languages: Swedish, Spanish and English. Its 13 tracks are, the artist agrees, his most accomplished to date and merge classic folk and accessible narratives with Latin and African elements. Experience its remarkable beauty here.
His personal Qwest TV selection blends links to his Latin roots with soul, blues, folk, jazz and rumba in one of our most diverse guest-curated playlists ever. Diana Ross, Paco de Lucia, Sharon Jones, Chet Baker, Brazilian tropicalism… step into the vibrant musical universe of José González.
Rowan Standish Hayes
