José González Returns With New Album and Tour

José González is preparing his first album in four years. Against the Dying of the Light, the follow-up to Local Valley, is out March 27 via Mute. Below, watch Fredrik Egerstrand’s video for the title track and check out González’s tour dates behind the LP. The album tracklist, also below, includes the recent single “Pajarito.”

The Swedish singer-songwriter gives a typically big-picture assessment of the song in a press release:

“Against the Dying of the Light” is a song reflecting on humanity in 2025. It’s about accepting who we are and what led us here, since the past can’t be changed. Then, about refocusing our attention on the challenges ahead, like pervert incentives and algorithms that aren’t in line with human flourishing. Even though natural selection led us here, we don’t have to do what is in the gene’s best interest. And even though cultural evolution led to our societies, we don’t have to keep all the narratives if they drag us down. And even though we have enormous opportunities with new technology that can eventually design and copy itself, we don’t have to build it right away if it has the potential to make us obsolete. We can rebel against these replicators, rebel against the dying of the light.

The album, he adds, concerns “who we are—tribes of sentient apes with stories that sometimes are incompatible with each other and tools that could eventually lead to dystopia or extinction. It’s also a reflection of how we create hurdles to human flourishing by stubbornly clinging to dogmatic ideologies, where people follow dudes who pretend to know shit they don’t.” He goes on, “As a concerned world citizen, I wrote these songs as a reflection of our times. Times of amazing progress, but also worrying backslides to dogmatic tribal ideologies and an extremely uncertain future. These are songs about how we can navigate humanity towards flourishing on an individual and a collective level. They can be listened to just for the sounds, harmonies, and rhythms, but the lyrics are meant to inspire people to engage and take action by collaborating to solve collective problems. For humanism and enlightenment values and against the dying of the light.”