FOREVER CHANGES: José González is looking ahead by looking behind. His most recent album, Vestiges & Claws, speaks to the roots and shoots of the ever-growing tree of humankind as it so uncertainly grows to new precipices. “Some of the songs have to do with humanity and where we are, where we come from, where we’re headed,” he explained during our phone interview. “‘Vestiges’ serves as a metaphor of something that has been and is still around in some sense; ‘claws’ is metaphor for the ability to move forward, to choose our way forward.”
For a UCSB Arts & Lectures performance, González will be playing at Campbell Hall tonight (Thu., Mar. 10) with yMusic, a critically acclaimed, N.Y.C.-based sextet of young classical virtuosos, and expect some vestigial material on the bill. After seven years of no full-lengths, the Gothenburg, Sweden, native’s newest finds the famed bard addressing changes of tremendous size with subtle acoustic arrangements. “I’m excited to be in this time in history, and I think there are so many things that are changing that it’s worth contemplating our place in the ecosystems, and in an ideological sense on how we are forming our societies,” he said. The “Heartbeats” singer is very much interested in the pulse of the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times. “Just the fact that we’re going from seven to maybe 11 billion people in a short time — that’s gonna be a big change.”
He could not have chosen a more apt partner to flesh out his songs than yMusic, who have built a name around their classical reinterpretations of modern indie folk and indie pop hits. They, too, like to address themes of concurrent and crosscutting energies and epochs in their music. When they open the night with an introductory set, expect swooning classical rearrangements of songs by contemporary artists like Sufjan Stevens and Son Lux.