Review: José González and The String Theory
Genre collaborations seem to be on the up at the moment and José González and The String Theory have just provided perhaps one of the best live examples to date.
As part of the Southbank Centre’s Nordic Matters festival of music and culture the Argentinian-Swedish indie folk singer-songwriter and guitarist José González combined with the contemporary orchestra The String Theory conducted by PC Nackt.
The result was a stunning re-imagining of José’s catalogue of acoustic tracks with a modern orchestral twist. The Southbank Centre seemed an appropriate place for a collaboration of such magnitude and it was obvious that the artists had put much work into the preparation of the set-list. It seemed like even though the genres were quite far apart in their roots, sound and pace, somehow all involved had successfully fused together everything that makes each individually great.
It’s not the first time this collaboration has played together and it was very evident witnessing the intricacy of the interactions between the original acoustic music and the orchestral backing. They collaborated and played several dates a few years back prior to González’s most recent album Vestiges and Claws and the chemistry created seems like it has paid off in a huge way.
Unfortunately this show only did a limited number of dates and locations across Europe. Our advice: if you are interested in either genre, or performer or have never been to see a live orchestra before then you should definitely look out for this show should it come back around. Not convinced or undecided, luckily for everyone (including us) the folks from the Nordic Matters Festival and the artists themselves have put the entire concert up online for you to enjoy. So if your intrigued our suggestion is, turn the lights down, click on the link below and see what you think.
As far as I’m concerned I’ll be first in line for tickets if they team up again, this really was a memorable night!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVxmSqb7HnE