jose gonzalez • down the line

This new single from Jose first appeared on his myspace page, I have to say he hasn't gone the way of a full band yet, still just his voice and a frantic acoustic guitar (thankfully). I love the sound he's crating, hushed layered vocals and a real sounding guitar, not into the mountain goats territory in terms of recording but enough not to hear hours of mastering, it still sounds real. There must be some serious pressure here to produce the success of heartbeats. Who knew the knife would blow up like that, let alone his version. Then the kylie single came out, so maybe I expect to hear something covered soon.
Don't get confused, this is still on the dark side, 'I see darkness down the line/I know that I'm right.' It's not the beaten crosses, he sounds fighting mad, seriously like a Ritchie Havens feel.
It has to be difficult when you are immediately successful like that and have to tell people to calm down you're just going to play and see what happens. I could see it being an annoying process.
The only place I saw online selling this yet was Hotstuff, of course.

GONZALEZ, JOSE - DOWN THE LINE UK

Jose Gonzalez became a household name across the world with the help of 250,000 coloured bouncing balls and a Sony Bravia television commercial featuring his spare and moving version of The Knife's song, 'Heartbeats', taken from his debut album ëVeneerí. JosÈ Gonz·lez is back with his highly anticipated sophomore album 'In Our Nature', and is set to dominate the airwaves once more with album highlight 'Down The Line'. The song has an overwhelming urgency with its unrelenting guitar strokes and foreboding yet universal lyrics. A brave move to release such a socially engaged song as the first single, however Gonzalez pulls it off with aplomb and a hook that filters straight to the head and heart and limbs.

Track listing 1. Down The Line 2. Smalltime Boy