Music!

[brigdh]

I have a new musical obsession, and I am here to share it with you all. A few weeks ago I was bored and playing around with friendsfriends, and stumbled across someone saying that all of Jose Gonzalez's music (there should be accents over the first e and the a, but I'm too lazy to code it in) reminded them of Richard from Swordspoint. Clearly I immediately had to download everything I could find. And once I'd seen how awesome the music was, I ran to buy his CD the very next day; his songs have already hit embarrassingly high play-counts on both my ipod and computer.

I'd heard of Jose Gonzalez before, but always in the context of his cover of The Knife's 'Heartbeats'. Which is a very pretty song but, in my opinion, sort of insipid; it had certainly never inspired me to go track down anything else by him. WHICH WAS A MISTAKE. Because all of the rest of his stuff is dark and fucked up and gorgeous; one of the songs I'm not uploading starts with the line "Poke the body with a stick, roll it down". I have no idea why the hell the music blogosphere went wild for 'Heartbeats' when they could have been posting 'Lovestain'. He's a Swedish musician, and his style reminds me a bit of Elliott Smith, Iron & Wine or Sufjan Stevens.

Here are my favorite songs of his. You know you need pretty acoustic guitar music with lyrics all about murderers and broken hearts.

Jose Gonzalez - Lovestain
You left a lovestain on my heart,
And you left a blood stain on the ground.
But blood comes off easily.

BEST SONG EVER IN THE HISTORY OF MUSIC, NOT EVEN KIDDING, YOU GUYS. This is the CD version; if anyone develops an obsession equal to mine, I also have two live versions I can share. I have live versions of several of these songs, by the way, so feel free to ask.

Jose Gonzalez - Slow Moves
My moves are slow,
But soon they'll know.
My moves are slow,
But soon they'll know.

Jose Gonzalez - All You Deliver
On the verge of ruin,
You'll see it all clear:
How steep the fall is,
How long the way back is.

Jose Gonzalez - Crosses
People staring; they know you've been broken,
Repeatedly reminded by the looks on their faces.
Ignore them tonight and you'll be alright.
We'll cast some light and you'll be alright.

Jose Gonzalez - Storm
All the stars are burning for you,
But none of them is going to last,
So stop chasing the past.
As soon as the storm is over,
And all the fog is clear,
As soon as the storm is over,
I've promised to send out for you.

Junip - Turn to the Assassin (This is a song by his other group.)
Go, repress your prudent side,
It's beautiful but plastic.
Go, reveal darker sides,
Killing is never too drastic.

Comments

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I am all about pimping out as much music as I can, m'dear. I hope you like it as much once you've listened to it!

Soooooo, what soundtrack is this? XD

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

I downloaded the first track and really enjoyed it. I'll hit the others later, it seems quite lovely! :) Though I was amused to see that iTunes categorized it as easy listening. *snicker*

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Easy listening?! Oh, iTunes, you hurt my soul.

I hope you like the rest!

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

The guitar rhythms move like footwork, like a weaving blade, and the unadorned style of both instrumentation and voice, the way the instrumentation is actually louder than the voice, like it's been layered over, is very reminiscent of Richard's approach to swordplay.

Also, I really love living in a world where a Swedish musician is named José González (boy, I hope I got the accent over the "a" going the right direction).

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, yes. That is such a lovely description of it.

I know, isn't that neat? But Sweden seems to have all the good musicians lately; that's also where The Knife, my other obsession, is from. (Yep, that's right! Good guess. *grins*)

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

It's beautiful music. I love acoustic guitars and rough, honest voices.

Sweden's always been a bastion of good musicians (yes, I am including ABBA in that, thank you, but not Ace of Base). And there were only two ways that accent could have gone, and I'd have had to look up the HTML for the other way. *G*

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I am so pleased other people like it. It's always slightly depressing to recommend something whole-heartedly and have it get a negative reception.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

Boy, you're telling me. Still, I persevere. It's a big world out there, and everybody's gotta like some piece of it. *G*

[rm.livejournal.com]

This is so true. I was going to say similar, but I'm glad I don't have to be articulate at the moment.

[bagma.livejournal.com]

I love these songs. Thank you for posting them! Until now I've only heard one song by José González: it's "Save your day", a song he did for a collective CD called "Cowboys in Scandinavia", very good BTW. By a curious coincidence, I was listening to this CD while reading Swordspoint for the first time...:)

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you like them. I really like 'Save Your Day', too, but I was trying to keep myself from posting every single song of his. *grins*

[rm.livejournal.com]

I downloaded these today despite an ongoing drama about Internet at work and I am COMPLETELY obsessed.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

*grins* I'm glad you like them.