Jose Gonzalez plays songs from 'Against the Dying of the Light' in The Current studio
by Mac Wilson
May 27, 2026
Although the title of José González’s 2026 album, Against the Dying of the Light, is recognizable from the work of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, Swedish singer-songwriter González was more inspired by modern-day Oxford philosopher Toby Ord and his 2020 book, The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. “[Ord] talks about natural risks that amount to one in 10,000 that we don't make it next 100 years,” González says, “but then the man-made risks, the estimations are around one in six that we don't make it, and I was like, ‘This is something we should rage against.’"
González admits the core of his music — and what his fans admire — is the softer, more soothing sounds of his music and lyrics. But González felt an urgency this time around. “The first song on the album [“A Perfect Storm”], that one is meant to be listened to at a loud volume and to think about the stuff that we want to collaborate on to avoid the extinction of humanity, basically,” González says.
While touring in support of the new album, González was in the Twin Cities for a show at First Avenue in Minneapolis. Prior to the concert, González visited The Current studio in St. Paul for a studio session hosted by Mac Wilson. Watch the full session above.
Interview Highlights
On the meaning of the song, “Etyd”
Mac Wilson: One of the songs that you played, "Etyd," I didn't pick up on the meaning of it at first, but when I heard you say the word out loud, it made me realize that an étude is a very specific type of musical composition. So, for like a pop music fan who may not be familiar with what an étude is, can you explain what it is?
José González: Yeah, étude is a kind of a rehearsal piece. So I used to play classical guitar, and maybe half of the pieces I would play were études, so, like, short and simple in many ways, and I just had that working name for this song, for this demo, and then I wrote the lyrics, and I felt like I'm just going to keep the word "Etyd," the Swedish version of "étude."
Mac Wilson: I do think that that's pretty funny, where you say that you used to play classical guitar, as any devotee of your music knows how integral your musicianship is, so you talking about playing classical guitar in the past, it's — as a non-musician myself, I'm just laughing; like, you're so modest!
José González: Well, I mean, I went to a private teacher once a month for a couple of years, and then it was too difficult. I was pretty slow, and I just, like, I'm gonna spend my time on other things, noticing how some of the amazing guitarists, they would just take off and, like, be like 10 times better than me, so, so I'm always like trying to be good, but finding my niche, and I'm a decent classical guitarist, but not a good one.
On the spirit of the songs on the album
Mac Wilson: There's a note that you put out with the release of the record. I'm paraphrasing, but it basically says this is a record that you can put on passively in the background, or you can listen very, very intently and raise your fist in the air. So that was interesting to me.
José González: Yeah. The thing with fist in the air, I think that sounds a bit weird for people who hear this session and listen to most of my music, but there are some songs that are a bit louder, and especially when I'm playing them live, they get very loud, and also some of the sentences are sort of in your face, so that those are the parts where I'm thinking, like, you can listen to this on high volume and put your fist in the air, but yeah, as you mentioned, I'm also into doing music that's very sort of soothing and appealing, and I'm very inspired by João Gilberto and his early just guitar and vocals, maybe a little high hat, and just playing very softly, and singing softly, and so that's basically what I think is my core of my music style, and where I think many of my fans, that's what they like, but once in a while I try to, yeah, write a sentence ... so "A Perfect Storm," the first song on the album, that one is meant to be listened to in a loud volume and to think about the stuff that we want to collaborate to avoid sort of the extinction of humanity, basically. So, rebel against those things.
Mac Wilson: Yeah, you have the note, too, where you say that "I hope that this is a collection of songs that ages very poorly,” with the idea that there's a lot of stuff that we're going through as humans now, and that hopefully we can leave that behind at some point, and at the same time you hope that it's a collection of songs that lives on, so you're speaking to both the present moment and trying to build something that's eternal. It's sort of a tricky needle to thread, but I think you're doing well with it.
José González: Oh, thank you. I mean, I used to try to write lyrics and write music that is universal and doesn't have a timestamp, but I did an exception on this album with touching topics that have to do with exponential technologies, and maybe in five or 10 years, people will look at sort of my concerns and feel like, "Oh, he was a Luddite."
On the album’s inspiration and its title
Mac Wilson: The new record, Against the Dying of the Light — now, that title song to the album, it's drawn from a phrase written by the late Dylan Thomas. It's funny, we were talking about domesticity and parenthood and what our lives are like, raising a family, it's relatively uneventful. Then you read about Dylan Thomas's life … and a very, very tumultuous life that he had, contrasting with the very tranquil ideas that you have. Was there any element beyond that of Dylan Thomas's life or words that you brought into that?
José González: Actually, I haven't read up on Dylan Thomas, so I didn't know that much, except for recognizing the sentence while I was writing "let's rebel against the replicators / against the dying of the light," that felt so, so right, that I just left it in, and then later I checked it up, and I was like, oh yeah, I recognize "rage, rage against the dying of the light," which was his way of saying that shouldn't go gentle into death, you should fight against it, even though it might be futile in the end. So for me, it felt right to use that sentence when I was thinking about the catastrophic risks and the existential risks of humanity that I've been reading up about, especially through a book called The Precipice by Toby Ord, Oxford philosopher, where he talks about natural risks that amount to one in 10,000 that we don't make it next 100 years, but then the man-made risks, the estimations are around one in six that we don't make it, and I was like, "No, this is something we should rage against, then."
Mac Wilson: OK, so speak a little bit more about the replicators. What specifically are those that you're referring to?
José González: Yeah, so that would be one of one of the scenarios that I'm concerned about. I've heard smarter people talk about that scenario. So there are many scenarios that could be catastrophic or existential, but having, if you create — so replicators could be the genes; these are the ones that created us and all the other species on earth; and then you have the memes in the Richard Dawkins sense, so it's not only cute cats on YouTube, it's any cultural unit that gets transmitted from brain to brain or through computers, that's a meme, so each word is a meme, a gesture is a meme; and then you have meme bundles, so that would be like the second replicator, and now we're creating third and maybe four type of replicators, so machines that can create other machines with variation, and then also you have evolution by natural selection and or evolution by not-so-natural selection, and that could be like one of the ways that we sort of lose control, and maybe these other replicators use more and more resources in a way where we're not the ones in control anymore, and so that's one of the existential risks that some people are talking about.
Mac Wilson: And this book, just, it names multiple existential risks beyond that, whether it's climate change or anything else, I'm guessing.
José González: Yeah, Toby Ord basically does a taxonomy, like a list, and then asks sector experts for their estimations, and then he does his own estimations, and so there's a probability distribution that he tries to narrow down to a mean, and then he gets the one in six that we don't make it next 100 years. But if we collaborate and put guardrails on some technologies, we might lower that to one in 60 or one in 6000 and we might, you know, make it through. And so five in six, we do make it through, so I'm preparing for an amazing future.
Video segments
00:00:35 Etyd
00:03:12 Interview with host Mac Wilson, part 1
00:11:08 Joy (Can’t Help But Sing)
00:14:03 Interview with host Mac Wilson, part 2
00:18:51 Against the Dying of the Light
All songs from José González’s 2026 album, Against the Dying of the Light, available on Mute Records.
Musician
José González – guitar and vocals
Credits
Guest – José González
Host – Mac Wilson
Producer – Derrick Stevens
Video Producer – Ariel Tilson
Video Editor – Josh Sauvageau
Camera Operators – Josh Sauvageau, Ruben Schneiderman, John Kuntz
Audio Engineers – Evan Clark, Sean Belcher
Graphics – Natalia Toledo
Digital Producers – Reed Fischer, Luke Taylor
External Link
José González – official site
