José González has announced that his first new album in five years, Local Valley, will be released on September 17 via Mute. In addition to the album announcement, González has shared its first single, “Visions.”

The track features humming birds and drifting instrumentals, González’s vocals echoing and harmonizing as they float through. An acoustic guitar joins him, strumming quietly as his voice reverberates over the word “visions.” The track carries a dreamy feel throughout its course, deep melodies humming “Visions/Enslaved by the forces of nature/Elevated by mindless replicators/Challegned to steer our collective destiny.”

“We are the apes that are starting to understand the universe and our place in it,” González said in a press release. “We are changing our surroundings in an exceedingly rapid pace, so much that we’re becoming stewards of our planet whether we like it or not. As Stewart Brand said, ‘We are as gods and we have to get good at it.’ The lyrics came to me in early February 2020 as there were more and more tweets about the possible pandemic. The topic of the song felt very timely. You can hear the birds and ambient sounds from the veranda, along with a layer of synth loops in the background.”

Local Valley will find González following his 2015 release, VESTIGES & CLAWS. The new album features González singing in three languages, English, Spanish and Swedish. He pulled inspiration from physicist Brian Cox’s Human Universe, with González seeking to expand on the ideas Cox had original brought forth.

“Many of these songs have a crystal-clear, secular humanist agenda: anti-dogma, pro-reason,” González said. “There’s no political agenda, though, at least not in a classical left-right spectrum. Maybe in a globalist-secular vs. theocratic-nationalist way: the focus is on underlying worldviews, and on our existential questions as smart apes on a quest to understand ourselves and our place in the cosmos.”

He describes Lost Valley has a continuation of the styles he created as a solo artist, and with his band Junip. The album will feature a mixture of classic folk songwriting, and influences from Latin America and Africa. “Visions” follows the album’s first single, “El Invento,” which had been released back in February.

Local Valley tracklist:

1. El Invento
2. Visions
3. The Void
4. Horizons
5. Head On
6. Valle Local
7. Lasso In
8. Lilla G
9. Swing
10. Tjomme
11. Line of Fire
12. En Stund Pa Jorden
13. Honey Honey

Photo credit: Adam Blyweiss