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May 04, 2021 By Mark Redfern

José González and Rufus Wainwright have announced some co-headlining U.S. tour dates for this fall. They go down this September and October and tickets go on sale this Friday (May 7) at 10 a.m. local time, with a fan presale tomorrow (May 5) at 10 a.m. local time. González has also shared a video for his recent single “Visions.” Check out the tour dates and video below.

González is releasing his first new album in over six years, Local Valley, on September 17 via Mute. It includes “El Invento,” a new Spanish language song González shared in February, and “Visions” (which was one of our Songs of the Week). The Swedish singer/songwriter/guitarist’s last studio album was 2015’s Vestiges & Claws.

Wainwright, meanwhile, released a new album, Unfollow the Rules, last year via BMG. Hence the tour is dubbed the “Unfollow The Rules in the Local Valley” tour.

Read our 2020 interview with Wainwright on Unfollow the Rules.

González has also announced two ticketed livestream performances. One will be on June 10 and will feature the singer/songwriter live from the Botanical Garden in Gothenburg, Sweden, with an interactive Q&A to follow. Then on September 12 González will again be live from Gothenburg, but this time the performance will be a full production and will also feature pre- and post-show interaction with González. Both shows will allow viewers able to switch camera angles at will. Tickets to both livestreams are available here.

“I am very much looking forward to perform for all my fans worldwide again,” says González in a press release. “First with the up and close interactive online event on June 10, and later on with some summer shows and touring once my album is released. I am also especially excited to be able to present the world premiere of my new tour online for all the fans worldwide that won’t have the chance to catch any of my shows this fall and winter.”

Mikel Cee Karlsson directed the “Visions” video.

“Mikel Cee Karlsson is always in tune with the underlying thoughts of the lyrics,” says González. “I like how he used the angle from above to look at our surroundings, both natural and man-made as the backdrop to the song which is directed to humanity as a whole. I also like the twist of a tool falling from space as a visualization that we can’t always know what might happen next.”

“The video is made (mostly) through animated images from Google Earth,” adds Karlsson. “It was the best way I could think of to get the right perspective, scale and atmosphere for a song like ‘Visions’ – a way to visualize the vast beauty and absurdity of the human condition; the constant natural changes and the impact of the human race; the good the bad and the ugly. Utopian dreams, greed and hope, all linked together on a little blue rock in space.”

“We are the apes that are starting to understand the universe and our place in it,” said González of “Visions” in a previous 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 just 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 was recorded at Studio Koltrast Hakefjorden, a studio set up by González in his family’s summer house, north of Gothenburg.

In the previous press release the musician said the album “is similar to my other solo albums in sound and spirit, a natural continuation of the styles I’ve been adding through the years both solo and with Junip. I set out to write songs in the same vein as my old ones: short, melodic and rhythmical, a mixture of classic folk singer songwriting and songs with influences from Latin America and Africa. It’s more outward looking than my earlier works, but no less personal. On the contrary, I feel more comfortable than ever saying that this album reflects me and my thoughts right now.”

Of the themes on the album, González added: “Many of these songs have a crystal-clear, secular humanist agenda: anti-dogma, pro-reason. 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.”

José González and Rufus Wainwright Co-Headlining 2021 Tour Dates:

September 20 – Kansas City, MO – Uptown Theater
September 21 – Des Moines, IA – Hoyt Sherman Place
September 23 – Minneapolis, MN – Northrop At UMN
September 24 – Chicago, IL – The Chicago Theatre
September 25 – Carmel, IN - The Palladium at The Center For The Performing Arts
September 26 – Detroit, MI –Cathedral Theatre at The Masonic Temple
September 28 – Washington, DC – The Anthem
September 29 – Boston, MA – The Orpheum Theatre
September 30 – New York, NY – The Rooftop at Pier 17
October 1 – Glenside, PA – Keswick Theatre

José González 2021 Tour Dates:

July 30 – Madrid, Spain – Noches del Botanico
August 7 – Shambrook, UK – DJ Koze presents @ Tofte Manor
August 27 – Neustrelitz, Germany – Immergut Festival
September 5 – Cabane des Becs de Bosson, Switzerland – PALP Festival
September 20 – Kansas City, MO – Uptown Theater *
September 21 – Des Moines, IA – Hoyt Sherman Place *
September 23 – Minneapolis, MN – Northrop At UMN *
September 24 – Chicago, IL – The Chicago Theatre *
September 25 – Carmel, IN - The Palladium at The Center For The Performing Arts *
September 26 – Detroit, MI –Cathedral Theatre at The Masonic Temple *
September 28 – Washington, DC – The Anthem *
September 29 – Boston, MA – The Orpheum Theatre *
September 30 – New York, NY – The Rooftop at Pier 17 *
October 1 – Glenside, PA – Keswick Theatre *
November 4 – Antwerp, Belgium – Da Roma
November 5 – Paris, France – Trianon
November 6 – Köln, Germany – Carlswerk Victoria
November 7 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Paradiso
November 8 – Nijmegen, Netherlands – Doornroosje
November 9 – Berlin, Germany – Astra
December 1 – Brighton, UK – Brighton Dome
December 2 – London, UK – Cadogan Hall
December 3 – Gateshead, UK – Sage Gateshead
December 4 – Liverpool, UK – Grand Central Hall
December 5 – Glasgow, UK – O2 Academy
December 6 – Manchester, UK – Albert Hall

* with Rufus Wainwright

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