SONG: "Lovestain" - Jose Gonzalez (Veneer, 2005)

Ever since the appearance of his single Heartbeats in a recent Sony Bravia TV ad campaign (you know, the one with all the coloured dots bouncing down the road), this previously-unknown Swedish singer-songwriter’s unassuming debut album has been hurtling off the shelves at an alarming rate. I say ‘alarming’ because the record itself looks like becoming a true anomaly in this day and age: a down-tempo offering from an independent solo artist that’s not only really good but also exhibits serious crossover potential without fear of its integrity becoming tarnished. Presumably for many of you your reaction upon first hearing Heartbeats was comparable to my own: if memory serves, I believe my response was simply “God, whoever the hell that’s by, it’s wonderful…”

The track itself is actually a cover of a Bjork-esque dance song by loopy electronic duo The Knife. However, like all great cover artists, González completely reinvents the track to make it his own by picking up on the song’s hidden depths and emotional frailties (he’s also reworked Kylie Minogue’s kitsch 1988 hit Hand On Your Heart to equally impressive effect).

I bought his debut LP Veneer the other week on the strength of this track alone. Like Elliott Smith’s earliest releases, the record is self-produced and thus has an endearingly dusky lo-fi quality to it which not only really adds to its overall character but oftentimes recalls the delicate sound of Nick Drake. It clocks in at just over half an hour and rarely progresses above a hushed whisper – indeed, it’s so intimately recorded that you can hear every scrape and squeak along the frets, every breath inhaled and every shift in expression, no matter how subtle.

After listening to the album in its entirety several times, Lovestain was the song which really started jumping out at me. The track has a cold, edgy malevolence about it which could only come from the most steely-eyed and calculated of restraint. It revolves around a methodical guitar motif which evokes an air of Appalachian folk, and the lyrics consist of just three lines repeated like a mantra: “You left a lovestain on my heart / You left a bloodstain on the ground / But blood comes off easily”. A series of dull hand-claps lend the track a monotonous, hypnotic rhythm as the song rises and falls within its given parameters of volume, as if on the edge of breaking into a rage before quietly reigning itself in.

The singer’s voice is impassive throughout and rarely displays any emotion; indeed, such is the power generated by his apparent detachment that you can almost imagine José González hunched over his acoustic guitar in a dark basement somewhere playing with the same intensity that he might in front of an audience of thousands. The track ends abruptly after a mere 134 seconds with the cold proclamation, “You left my heart stained” – a sentiment which anyone who’s surrendered to the charms of this unique and talented artist would no doubt echo in the strongest terms imaginable.