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Jos\u00e9 Gonz\u00e1lez<\/a> is preparing his first album in four years. Against the Dying of the Light<\/em>, the follow-up to Local Valley<\/em><\/a>, is out March 27 via Mute<\/a>. Below, watch Fredrik Egerstrand\u2019s video for the title track and check out Gonz\u00e1lez\u2019s tour dates behind the LP. The album tracklist, also below, includes the recent single \u201cPajarito<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The Swedish singer-songwriter gives a typically big-picture assessment of the song in a press release:<\/p>\n \u201cAgainst the Dying of the Light\u201d is a song reflecting on humanity in 2025. It\u2019s about accepting who we are and what led us here, since the past can\u2019t be changed. Then, about refocusing our attention on the challenges ahead, like pervert incentives and algorithms that aren\u2019t in line with human flourishing. Even though natural selection led us here, we don\u2019t have to do what is in the gene\u2019s best interest. And even though cultural evolution led to our societies, we don\u2019t 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n The album, he adds, concerns \u201cwho we are\u2014tribes of sentient apes with stories that sometimes are incompatible with each other and tools that could eventually lead to dystopia or extinction. It\u2019s 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\u2019t.\u201d He goes on, \u201cAs 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n