Junip
As a solo artist, Argentine-born, Sweden-based indie-folk auteur José González can massage your worried mind like Cat Stevens. With his band Junip, there's a dark, funky undercurrent pulling against the pastoral kindness. Here, he dangles tensile guitar and low-talking tenor over stark, worldly grooves and drone-haunted synths, like Fleet Foxes with a hellhound on their trail. González's hippie bromides have a "hey, whatever" mordancy; see the mumblecore dirge-boogie "Your Life Your Call," or "Line of Fire," a rip-roaring free-form meltdown that asks you to "look through all your dark corners." Junip find something creepily beautiful down every one of theirs.