VMP Magazine
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Revisiting ‘Veneer’ and ‘In Our Nature’
“Cast some light and you’ll be alright” repeats José González in “Crosses,” a standout track on his debut LP, Veneer — an album that came out in 2003 (internationally in 2005). The Sweden-born Argentinian singer-songwriter was perhaps one of the more unlikely candidates for global troubadour; he was raised in Gothenburg, Sweden, by two academics who fled Argentina in 1976 following a military coup, and was well on his way through a PhD in biochemistry when the guitar tempted its way into his hands. González’s playing style is its own quiet-yet-deeply-impactful beast: Inspired early on by bossa nova and Silvio Rodríguez, among others, González also spent many years playing in a hardcore band — the intensity of which still seeps into his current work.
