JOSE GONZALEZ - Veneer Review

In an age where, to quote Arctic Monkeys, "there's only music so that's there's new ringtones", José González makes for an unlikely star. A 28 year old Swedish resident, born to Argentinean parents, his debut album is minimal, sparse and can get pretty dark. Not the sort of thing you can imagine blaring out of the nearest Nokia, that's for sure....full text Aside from the villages of the Southern Gothenburg Archipelago in Sweden, where residents operate on a strict no-car policy (they have fishing cottages, bush-laden pathways and tram transportation - but no cars), Jos� Gonz�lez's Veneer might be another item that qualifies for a bullet point in the next edition of Fodor's Travel Guide. A native of Sweden's second largest city, Jos� Gonz�lez managed to find enough solace and quaintness among Gothenburg and its nearly 800,000 inhabitants to record Veneer....full text Trou-ba-dour n (ca. 1741): one of a class of lyric poets and poet-musicians often of knightly rank who flourished from the 11th to the end of the 13th century chiefly in the south of France and the north of Italy and whose major theme was courtly love....full text