Calexico Albums (9)
What The Critics Say
From its beautiful, spray-painted stencil artwork (courtesy of longtime Calexico cover artist Victor Gastelum) to the sounds within it, Carried to Dust recalls previous Calexico high points like The Black Light and, especially, Feast of Wire. Considering that Joey Burns and John Convertino reunited with many of the Feast of Wire players for these songs, the similarities shouldn't come as a surprise -- nor should Calexico's skill at revisiting older territory and finding new outcroppings in it. "Victor Jara's Hands," a tribute to the Chilean poet/musician/political activist who was murdered in 1973, begins Carried to Dust in quintessential Calexico fashion with intricate rhythms from Convertino and swells of mariachi horns, but the guest vocals by Jairo Zavala of the Spanish band Depedro add an extra, eloquent depth. "El Gatillo (Trigger Revisited)" returns to the rhythms and melody of The Black Light's "Trigger," but transforms them into a tense spaghetti western theme. The thoughtful, whispery pop Calexico dove into on Garden Ruin also gets its due here; unlike that album, which was so gentle that its charms took awhile to unfold, Carried to Dust's quiet moments are often just as vivid as the flamboyant ones. "House of Valparaiso," which features Iron & Wine's Sam Beam, "Writer's Minor Holiday"'s twangy pop, and "Slowness"'s sweetly ambling country duet sound even brighter next to "Inspiracion"'s en Espanol lovelorn drama or "Two Silver Trees"' gorgeously shadowy fusion of Latin and Asian elements -- Calexico is one of a handful of groups that would think of combining Chinese guizeng, Venezuelan cuatro, and omnichord on one song and make all those sounds work together in a completely natural way. Carried to Dust also has subtler moments of innovation, such as "Bend to the Road," which expands on Calexico's southwestern jazz leanings, and "Contention City," a collaboration with Tortoise's Doug McCombs that spins toy piano and electronics into a haunting finale. Carried to Dust isn't just one of Calexico's most expansive albums, it's also their most balanced, channeling their experience and potential into a subtly dramatic, chiaroscuro tour de force. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
When a band starts out with an aesthetic as specific as Calexico's, sometimes expanding that sound means incorporating more pop elements into it. And, after years of being known -- accurately or not -- as the indie-mariachi band, Calexico may have felt boxed in by their very distinctiveness. Like Feast of Wire, Garden Ruin finds them moving further into more song-based, immediately accessible territory (their collaborations and performances with bands like Wilco and Iron & Wine may have also inspired them to tone down their theatricality). With no instrumentals -- a first on a Calexico album -- and less emphasis on elaborate arrangements, Garden Ruin presents an almost mainstream version of Calexico, with mixed results. At times, as on "Yours and Mine," the band strays toward typical alt-country and ends up sounding overly restrained and mature. However, the beautiful melodies on "Panic Open String" and "Bisbee Blue" (a warm little love song to Bisbee, AZ, where the album was recorded) and the '70s singer/songwriterisms of "Lucky Dime" prove that the band can bend pop to Calexico's sound instead of vice versa. Though Joey Burns' whispery vocals help make Garden Ruin feel initially more hushed than it actually is, it becomes clear as the album unfolds that Calexico haven't completely abandoned their flair for striking arrangements and drama. They've just channeled it in different directions. "Cruel" -- whose lyrics deal with environmental corruption -- nods to the classic Calexico sound with its swooning pedal steel, brass, and strings, while "Roka" is a haunted yet sexy-sounding duet that echoes the band's most stunning moments. "Letter to Bowie Knife" (which sounds like a kissing cousin to their fantastic cover of Love's "Alone Again Or?") marries lyrics like "This world's an ungodly place" to a buoyant melody, one of Calexico's time-tested tricks. Likewise, the gentlest, most intimate ballad is called "Smash" -- but even this relatively quiet song has thunderous timpani rolling in the distance. The band also rocks more than it has in the past, earnestly on "Deep Down" and with real anguish on Garden Ruin's striking final track, "All Systems Red." Ultimately, this album ends up being a more naturalistic take on Calexico's sound; just because it's less stylized doesn't mean it's less interesting -- it just takes a little more time for Garden Ruin's power to reveal itself. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Feast of Wire does indeed offer a tantalizing array of sounds new and old from Calexico, including more pop-oriented takes on their already eclectic style as well as some different sonic twists. Though the album features plenty of the atmospheric interludes of their previous work -- such as the squelchy, piano-based "Stucco" and the cello- and pedal-steel-driven "Whipping the Horse's Eye" -- the overall feel of Feast of Wire is one of restraint and refinement. The album's longest song, the gorgeous, film noir/spaghetti western fusion "Black Heart," tops out at just under five minutes, and the vast majority of the tracks barely make it past the three-minute mark -- not enough time for experimentation to turn into self-indulgence. However, it feels like these shorter compositions have more impact: "Sunken Waltz" sketches a vignette of Southwestern despair with just acoustic guitar, brushed drums, accordion, and Joey Burns' papery vocals. Burns' voice plays a larger part on Feast of Wire than on previous Calexico albums, adding a humble charm to sweeping songs like "Quattro (World Drifts In)." Despite its seeming limitations, Burns' small, parched-sounding instrument is surprisingly versatile, lending a Dylan-like cast to the aforementioned "Black Heart" and a Dean Wareham-like drawl to the lilting Tex-Mex melody of "Across the Wire." Burns' vocals also dominate Feast of Wire's most uniquely accessible moments: "Stevie Nicks," a surprisingly, sunny bit of folk-rock, and the quiet, alt-country-ish "Woven Birds." But despite the steps forward Calexico makes on this album, the band still has time for their more traditional, instrumental-based music, exemplified here by "Dub Latina," "Pepita," and "Guero Canelo." The second half of Feast of Wire in particular sounds more like what you'd expect from a Calexico album, and the group touches on the different facets of that style, including the kitschy-cool "Attack el Robot! Attack," which with its crunchy drums and gurgling synths, does sort of sound like it could be from a Mexican sci-fi movie; the shuffling Latin beat, pedal steel, and mod horns on "Close Behind" give it a Morricone-meets-mariachi feel that makes it a quintessential Calexico track; and best of all, "Crumble" builds on the smoky, jazzy side of their sound that they began developing in earnest on The Hot Rail. In the hands of a lesser band, all the different sounds Calexico explore on Feast of Wire could result in a mish-mash of an album, but fortunately for them and their fans, it's one of their most accomplished and exciting efforts. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
'Scraping'
Release Date 1/1/2002
Tracks 13
Label Our Soil, Our Strength
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Calexico has come a long way from those tentative but promising early duo dates that Joey Burns and John Convertino cobbled together during the Spoke years, when the Tucson-based band was still more of a quiet side project from the pair's regular gig as Giant Sand's rhythm section. But beginning with the full-band shows for The Black Light tours, Calexico's eclectic mix of minor-key, mariachi-surf-spaghetti-twang-rock was custom-honed to replicate, and expand upon, the band's one-of-a-kind studio sound. The trumpet blasts, eerie vibraphone, plains-sweeping pedal steel, reverb-happy riffs, and thunderous press-rolls offered something for a broad range of music lovers -- particularly in Europe, where fans caught on earlier and in greater numbers. An Internet/tour-only CD (www.casadecalexico.com), Scraping features the same band Calexico has fielded for several years now -- Burns (guitar, vocals), Convertino (drums), Martin Wenk (vibes, trumpet), Volker Zander (bass), Jacob Valenzuela (trumpet, vibes), and Lambchop member Paul Niehaus (pedal steel, guitar) -- and documents them at a time when they've obviously gelled. Ten of the 13 pristine-sounding cuts are from a January 2002 show at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall. (Two other cuts, "Sanchez" and "Paper Re-Route," were recorded in Tucson in May of 2001, while a third, "Stray," is from the July 2000 Roskilde Festival in Denmark.) Scraping was recorded during a period when Calexico stretched out at least once or twice per show into extended, jaw-dropping jazz- or psychedelic-inflected soundscapes. Valenzuela proves inestimable, particularly on "Fade" (a 12-minute Miles Davis-meets-Morricone rave-up) and "Sonic Wind," his muted and clarion-like horn blowing powering some memorably climatic crescendos. The infectious single "Crystal Frontier" (from the EP Even My Sure Things Fall Through) was a regular show-closer at the time, its mariachi horn blasts, flamenco-like strumming, and extended bridge revving up crowds to a fever pitch before sending them on their way. That song was eventually supplanted by the equally rambunctious "Guero Canelo" to close the Feast of Wire tours that followed -- that this band has become even tighter on subsequent tours almost stretches credulity. One does wish there was at least one more cut on the 69-minute Scraping -- since they were cherry-picking, a version of another popular show opener and quintessential Calexico song, "Glowing Heart of the World" (from the Road Map EP), would have been a good candidate. There may be even better versions of some of these songs on the many live bootlegs generated by Calexico, but it's unlikely they'll sound this crisp. Scraping offers irrefutable evidence that Calexico is one of the most entertaining live bands -- and, sadly, still somewhat neglected -- America has to offer. ~ John Schacht, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Continuing the Tijuana Brass meets Giant Sand and Ennio Morricone in a dark neuvo-waveo spaghetti Western approach they've gradually refined over the past two albums, multi-instrumentalists John Convertino and Joey Burns keep exploring terrain they've uniquely staked out. While not as cinematic, sprawling, and impressive as 1998's The Black Light, the duo create vivid soundscapes as dry, hot, and shimmering as the weather of their Tucson, Arizona home. Although they subtly expand their palette in all sorts of interesting ways, the spooky, late-'70s Miles Davis feel they inject into the nearly eight-minute "Fade" through jazzy drums, spacy vibes, and ominous cello works best. The songs, especially the appropriately named atmospheric instrumentals "Untitled II" and "Untitled III" tend to meander, but the duo keeps peeling back more layers and different instruments to pull the listener's interest. "Sonic Wind" and "Ballad of Cable Hogue" are as succinct, melodic, and tight as they've ever been, and Joey Burns' yearning, whisper of a voice suits this evocative music perfectly. This could easily turn into schtick, though, and it's to the duo's credit that they not only take themselves seriously, but don't pummel their weirdness into the ground. Instead, they push and knead the already elastic boundaries of a genre they've practically created, in jazzy, bluesy, and experimental directions that indicate they have a rich future ahead of them. Hot Rail isn't a great album; it's far too spotty and inconsistent musically. But it's an important one because it proves Calexico isn't content to remain stuck in an intriguing but limiting rut and is willing to explore new sonic directions while maintaining a distinctive identity and vision. ~ Hal Horowitz, All Music Guide
'Travelall'
Release Date 1/1/2000
Tracks 9
Label Our Soil, Our Strength
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
The most adventurous of Calexico's tour-only CDs (still available intermittently through the band's website), Travelall is an instrumental-only full-length featuring the band's unique improvisational soundscapes. The nine cuts assembled for the 2000 Hot Rail tour anticipate elements of the band's current live sound, especially the group's occasional tilt toward jazz-like motifs during concert staples like "Fade" and "Sonic Wind." But before the jazz-phobic swear it off, Travelall's songs aren't limited to any one sonic category. The record forgoes the band's signature mariachi-flavored south-of-the-border sound, instead digging deep into Calexico's ever-expanding stylebook to tap into Native American rhythms (on "The Waves Crashing Silently Through the Dominator's Hull"), Cuban themes (a heavily effected electric guitar rave-up, "Cachaca"), the melancholic impressions of French composer Erik Satie ("The Night Is Upon Us"), and fado inflections ("Lunada Lando"). But the record works best as a showcase for the multi-instrumental talents of the two principal Calexicans, Joey Burns and John Convertino. The latter is particularly impressive on drums and percussion, his jazz and rock chops propelling the music throughout (the first 60 seconds of "Waves," the opener, is a holistic myriad of drumming techniques). Whether playing with brushes ("The Night Is Upon Us," for instance) or executing thunderous press rolls Art Blakey would have admired (particularly on "Fine Patina"), to focus on Convertino's work (preferably with headphones) is to be reminded that drums needn't be relegated to a one-dimensional time-keeping duty. Burns, too, shines on Travelall; the classically trained cellist is particularly effective on that instrument, as well as electric and nylon-stringed Spanish guitars, upright and electric basses, and vibes, which both principals play. The duo gets a big lift from three horn players (appearing separately): Rob Mazurek (Chicago Underground, Isotope 217), whose cornet graces the disc's opener; future full-time member Martin Wenk (trumpet on "Cachaca"); and Jon Birdsong (trumpet on the 13-minute epic "Flat Handed and on the Wing"). Noel Kupersmith (upright bass) and Doug McCombs (electric bass) of Brokeback also contribute to "Flat Handed," which, like other Calexico epics (think "Triple T Truckstop" from the Descamino 12" or "Singing Wind Ranch" from Aerocalexico), resembles the eerie and plaintive soundtrack to a desert noir film yet to be made. In the end, enjoyment of Travelall will no doubt depend on one's view of instrumental material in general. For those who need the familiar structure of verse-verse-chorus, Travelall will be a disappointment. But those who enjoy Calexico's instrumental interludes on the group's major releases, or who can conjure up their own mental images to accompany these songs, should revel in the magic of this rare treat. ~ John Schacht, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Deeper and richer than their debut, Spoke, Calexico's second album expands upon the sun-baked, cinematic sound of before with the addition of Latin jazz rhythms, mariachi trumpets, and pedal steel; in and of themselves, the group's songs are not exactly compelling, but they're produced with such a fine sense of texture and atmosphere that The Black Light still makes for intriguing listening. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The back cover photo of Spoke is a furrowing farm machine, and in the context of this recording, one might imagine clouds of birds following the machinery to eat up the disturbed insects. Calexico snatch up the bits of Americana turned out by a rototilling of the national music psyche. The 19 resultant tracks can be small as insects (the shortest being half a minute in length) and erratic in flight; there are lo-fi songs and themes that proceed without concern for what came before. One bit is held up by guitar, another by accordion, then one by vibes. A bit of desert dust sprinkled throughout may be the only constant theme -- a Santa Fe rummage sale of sounds. Spoke is very intriguing and well worth exploring. ~ Tom Schulte, All Music Guide
