This first video, a performance of “How Low” by José González and Yukimi Nagano in Marfa, Texas, has recently done the rounds on Tumblr, and I thought it senseless not to feature it here as I hadn’t seen it before myself. Also, I thought I’d use this as a way of extending the post into a collaboration article between the band and the solo-artist that is José González. The second video (where Erik and Yukimi provide backing vocals and percussion) is of “Killing For Love” and was shot in Nyhetsmorgon, 2007.
“How Low”
“Killing For Love”
This is an astoundingly moving live performance of “The Nest” by José González, alongside Yukimi who co-wrote this song. And that’s an important thing to note, that this is a Nagano written tune, too. Referring to “The Nest” in a performance in Los Angeles in 2007, José said, “The next song is about nationalism and paranoia.” On the studio version, available on his record In Our Nature or by clicking here, you can hear Hakan provide this mesmerising layering of synthesiser which confusingly grows naturally beside González’s acoustic patterns. Erik also provides percussion throughout the whole record and has toured with José. Here’s another couple of videos, too: “Time To Send Someone Away” and “Abram”. (These videos were produced by Guy Hajaj (of haoneg.com), and recorded and mixed at Mearbel studios in Tel Aviv, Israel, on October 11th 2008.)
This “Artist Portrait” of José also features video footage of Yukimi and Erik. Have I missed out on any videos or songs or facts? Probably. Help me out.
awesome videos!!! I saw Yukimi and Erik do vocals and percussions at Jose’s show in Frankfurt. So amazing. It’s so cool that they’ve co-written songs and that Jose, Little Dragon and now Junip share the same recording studio in Gothenburg.
A fact to add?? They actually were dating for quite a while. Not sure for how long but definitely since early 2007. I don’t know if they still are.
Jose refers to Yukimi as his girlfriend in a lot of interviews ie. http://pitchfork.com/features/guest-lists/6721-jose-gonzalez/.
Same with Yukimi. She also posted a video on her blog of her and Jose on a trip in Japan with “Cycling Trivialities” in the background. http://electricforest-yukimi.blogspot.com/2009/01/cycling-trivialities.html
This is weird to say and embarrassing to admit but you can be friends with Yukimi on facebook haha. She literally accepts everyone. I did it and for a while she was “In A Relationship with Jose Gonzalez” which linked to his fb profile. But it’s been taken down now but it could just be because they wanted privacy.
Either way it’s pretty awesome!! They kinda remind me of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Yukimi definitely has a better voice though.
I just saw the Artist Portrait! There is some amazing concert footage in there. I really want to watch that documentary “The Extraordinary Life of Jose Gonzalez” but it’s really nowhere to be found online and I don’t know when/where they will screen it again. Do you know anything about it perhaps?
Have you heard anything from his tour with the Gothenburg String Theory?! I had the chance to see them and it was mind blowing. Check out a performance of “Teardrop”–here’s one with better sound qualities: http://youtu.be/_UCkRVZVL10
It’s really fantastic. I hope they do another tour!
Thanks again for the posts Daniel..finding some really great stuff here!