Calexico - Frontier Post-Rock

Calexico's music is a kind of road movie, playing out between the scorching sands of Arizona and the allure of Mexican fiestas. It's a dreamlike blend of rock and mariachi, folk and country, gypsy moods and chamber music, jazz improvisation and Ennio Morricone-style soundscapes.

Calexico is a city in California whose name joins the beginning of the word “California” with the end of the word “Mexico.” A crossing, a koinè if you will, but also a borderline: it's not California, yet it's not Mexico either; it's both at once, and something more besides. This is the distinctive quality of the word “Calexico,” beyond its topographical reference, which captivated Joey Burns and John Convertino, formerly bass and percussion in Howe Gelb's Giant Sand, who in 1996 decided to launch a new musical project bearing exactly that name.

In 1997 they released their debut album, Spoke, to a muted reception: their formula mixes folk and country, Bob Dylan and Giant Sand, spaghetti westerns and Mexican moods. The result is interesting, but lacks cohesion; indeed, it would have been unthinkable for the Tucson, Arizona duo to coherently blend such disparate stylistic elements right from their debut.

With The Black Light, however, the Burns-Convertino partnership hits the jackpot: their second effort not only keeps in perfect balance the elements that remained scattered on Spoke, but miraculously adds new ones, expanding the already rich sonic horizons of their debut into the American South and Latin America.

The Black Light is a kaleidoscope of traditional, popular and even, in places, learned music: the roots of American music (folk and country), Tex-Mex (the Hispanic music of Texas) and Mexican mariachi orchestras merge with echoes of Balkan, Peruvian and Caribbean musical traditions. Add to this Morricone-esque touches, chamber-music incursions and a (post-)rock attitude. The grace with which this multicolored tapestry unfolds is truly astonishing.

Burns and Convertino are backed by a group of musicians equal to the task: Howe Gelb on piano and organ, Neil Harry on pedal steel guitar, Bridget Keating on violin, Gabriel Landin on guitarrón (the large Mexican guitar), Nick Luca on classical guitar, and the three trumpeters Rigo Pedroza, Fernando Sanchez and Al Tapatio.

The tracklist comprises seventeen pieces, only six of which ("The Ride", "The Black Light", "Missing", "Trigger", "Stray" and "Bloodflow") feature vocals; the remaining eleven tracks are all instrumentals. The music of Calexico grabs you from the very first listen with its cinematic fascinations: the aching "Gypsy's Curse", the opening track, "Frontera", the closer, and the evocative "The Ride" are border rides accompanied by mariachi trumpets and desert guitars. These are, in effect, reckless road trips that wouldn't have looked out of place as sonic backdrops to Robert Rodriguez's early films. Tracks like "The Black Light", "Missing" and "Bloodflow", on the other hand, veer toward jazzy, nocturnal moods, giving themselves over to stretched-out chords and knotty rhythms reminiscent of a certain Louisville post-rock sound. Behind these pieces, sung by Burns almost in a whisper, lies the most melancholic (the aching steel guitar, à la Neil Young) and refined (Convertino's lithe brushwork) side of Calexico.

Every track on the album is worth noting, but among the many, special mention should go to the mournful chamber sonata for cello, vibraphone and guitar that is "Where Water Flows"; the gypsy fanfare for accordion and cello of "Sideshow"; the solemn "Minas De Cobre", indebted to Ennio Morricone's scores for Sergio Leone's westerns; and that masterpiece of country simplicity titled "Over Your Shoulder". Then there's "Fake Fur", a kind of rumba propelled by upright bass and metallic percussion, while the steel guitar languishes in the background. And how can we not mention track twelve, "Sprawl", a brief noir interlude suspended between dreamy mandolin notes and tender, barely perceptible touches of vibraphone?

Calexico breathe new life into traditional music, and not just American traditions. Theirs is a new way of conceiving roots-rock, seen as a rediscovery of musical roots that is no longer unidirectional and specific, but global. But there's more to it: behind the seemingly playful nature of Burns and Convertino lie, in fact, passionate and erudite musicians, existentialists in their most extreme moments.

In the late Nineties, a decade in which rock kept its eyes fixed firmly forward, Calexico looked back instead, exhuming music from distant times and places with the rigor of ethnomusicologists, and in doing so created a form of postmodern roots-rock.

All of this, on Hot Rail (2000), is made even more complex. "We drew on the so-called 'Chicago sound'," recalls Joey Burns, bassist and mastermind of the band. "But the jazz influences also grew, and the mariachi trumpets became even sharper. We worked a lot on dynamics: silence/noise/rumble/whisper. And the instrumental palette expanded too, with marimba, steel guitar and harpsichords." These transformations on the part of Burns and Convertino (percussion) also owe something to their shared stint in Giant Sands, their collaborations with Lisa Germano and Shannon Wright, and the influence on both of the mid-Eighties Paisley Underground.

Hot Rail keeps the balance between rock and classical music, even though the latter, at times, seems to take the upper hand. A calmer, more reflective mood prevails throughout, from the horn-driven mariachi instrumental "El Picador" (dedicated to the legends of the bullring) to the psychedelic spaghetti-western of "Ballad of Cable Hogue", from the melancholic ballad "Service and repair" to the Eastern-tinged mysticism of "Hot Rail". What remains, however, is the Mexican "saudade" that pervaded The Black Light — a mood that's hard not to breathe in if you live around Tucson, Arizona: a land suspended between the flavors of American country & western and warm Mexican indolence.

Burns explains: "Southern Arizona used to be Mexican. Then, in the mid-19th century, the US acquired this territory to build the railroad, and the borders changed too. But the people there kept that identity and that culture. And it was Mexican music that my mother used to sing to me when she played the piano." The name Calexico itself, after all, comes from the fusion of California (where Burns lived for years) and Mexico. But the music of this kind of "desert chamber ensemble" is also lit up by a psychedelic spirit — one that Burns considers almost innate: "In Arizona you don't need drugs to get high. Psychedelia is in the air, in the sun, in the sky. As far as I'm concerned, tequila and some good Mexican wine are enough for me."

Feast Of Wire (2003) picks up the psychedelic vein that had already emerged, above all, on Hot Rail. But jazz also pushes its way in: trumpets and trombones heat up a cocktail of rock and mariachi, folk and country, ballads redolent of Neil Young and Ennio Morricone-style soundscapes. Some absolute novelties also surface for Calexico: a certain lounge exoticism in the arrangements and a few flashes of electronics. The album contains 16 tracks, 9 of them instrumental, for 47 minutes of music that sit halfway between the two previous records. The opening "Sunken waltz" is a warm, seductive country waltz that merges Neil Young with the Eagles. The Caribbean flavors of "Quattro (World drifts in)" evoke shots of tequila and hot, sun-baked desert afternoons. "Stucco" is a brief instrumental interlude that ferries us into the noir atmospheres of "Black heart", a perfect blend of melody and noise, strings and distorted guitars, that seems to come straight from the darkest recesses of Black Heart Procession. But also shining through are the studied, cerebral slowness of "Pepita", the nocturnal atmospheres of "Not even Stevie Nicks" — essentially Neil Young marrying Mercury Rev in a light, finely psychedelic ballad — and the western ride of "Close behind", which winks at Morricone's spaghetti-western work for Sergio Leone's trilogy. The second half of the record is more markedly experimental. "The book and the canal", introduced by soft piano chords and the magical sound of a distant violin, is a tiny, 1'45" gem of classical austerity; "Attack el Robot! Attack!" is a delightful pastiche mixing trumpets, light dissonances, noise and minimal electronics. "Across the wire" renews the tex-mex thrill with its mariachi-party cadences, while "Guero canelo" lingers on somewhat overused Latin sounds. If "Whipping the horse's eyes" is an unexpected ambient digression, "Crumble" leads into openly jazz territory, with an acid-tinged mariachi orchestra tuning its brass to the same key as "Hot Rail". Finally, "No doze" closes the album in a post-rock mood caked in dust and sand.

In The Reins (2005) is a collaboration between Calexico and Iron And Wine. Burns, Convertino and Beam had first crossed paths a few years earlier, and the three had already promised themselves they'd write something together one day. That day finally came, giving rise to this seven-track EP, all newly written material composed for the occasion. It kicks off on a high note: "He Lays In The Reins" opens the record, ruled by Calexico's desert brushwork of lap-steel, piano and tex-mex percussion; a track with a deeply evocative melody, entrusted to Beam and to Salvador Duran, a tenor from the Tucson flamenco scene (where the album was recorded). Roles are reversed on "Prison On Route 41": whereas before Beam acted as vocalist for Calexico, here it's the Arizona band backing up Iron & Wine's exploits. The pleasant track is a fine example of the bearded troubadour's tender songwriting, lavished with slide guitar brushstrokes and harmonica and banjo forays in its middle section.

The real cooperation begins with the third track, when the two distinct personalities start to merge and explore ground that's partly shared and partly foreign to their respective music. "History Of Lovers" rests on a backdrop of rhythmic guitars and ever-present counterpoint slide before spilling over into a flourish of horns; "Red Dust" is an acidic blues-rock jam for guitar, harmonica and accordion; "16, Maybe Less", meanwhile, is the classic atmospheric slow number, as classy as it is prone to drag. Unfortunately these are blatantly formulaic songs, carrying no emotion and no jolt of any kind whatsoever. Partial redemption comes with the closing tracks, where the two paths once again tend to diverge. The smoky noir woven by "Burn That Broken Bed" bears the Calexico stamp, diving into a murky blues from which a lovely sax solo emerges, precious, carrying the track to its death. Even better, and on par with the EP's first successful track, is the choral, heartfelt acoustic finale "Dead Man's Will", pure Iron & Wine through and through.

Though not without a few enjoyable moments, the record disappoints: the best tracks are the ones least touched by this foundered collaboration, leaving expectations for each act's respective solo work still intact.

The 2006 album, Garden Ruin, marks a very sharp turn both in composition and in sound: eleven songs, and not Calexico-songs (except for a couple), but songs in the classic sense — very country, very pop, very folk, no instrumental sketches, little to no "desert brushwork". Just the opening track, "Cruel", is enough to set the coordinates and gauge how successful the first act of the band's new direction (will it stick?) really is. The piece opens with dark arpeggios that dissolve into an extremely romantic melodicism, "open" in its all-too-textbook unfolding. The melodic flow is a bit lopsided: undecided about which direction to take, it splits its attention evenly between moods without ever really digging into either. The horns at the end only serve to stir the waters and muddy the ideas further. The scope broadens as the record goes on: "Yours And Mine" tries its hand at a tender folk-pop sketch, too classic and too formulaic to convince, even if it's not bad; "Bisbee Blue" instead throws itself into country-pop, suffering the same flaws and succeeding even less, being, even by genre standards, utterly nondescript. "Panic Open String" tries to funnel everything heard so far into a single track, a smooth, caressing whisper with flutes exuding calm: the result is even more anonymous, downright soporific when heard in context.

The subject matter seems miles away from the sensibility of Burns and Convertino, who fail to put any soul into these tracks, letting them drift by devoid of any real emotion. A partial jolt comes from "Letter To Bowie Knife", a totally unexpected rock number (though nothing on this record is exactly predictable) which, despite still bearing the mark of a band out of its depth, lands two convincing blows against everything heard so far and launches into anthemic flourishes. It's the record's best moment, and riding on its momentum comes a half-dive into the past with "Roka", which brings the night with it: the vocals drop low (showcasing how much Burns' singing has improved), flirtatious tex-mex, a seductive dance de la muerte in duet with a female voice. "Lucky Dime", on the other hand, aims straight at the Beatles' more grown-up side, with its classy pop keyboard flow. From here on, little else happens, with the overly self-assured emotional crescendo of "Smash", the utterly banal (and almost irritating) bare-bones rock of "Deep Down", and "Nom de Plume", a smoky diversion into the French suburbs.

In practice, only the final flourish, "All Systems Red", stands out, landing truly touching arpeggios that stretch out along post-rock lines, howling, wounded, right up to the death. All in all, it's one of the few redeeming things on a record that finds Calexico deeply ill at ease in this, all things considered, clumsy pop venture.

The follow-up Carried To Dust (2008) confirms the new direction: concert-level musicianship, classy arrangements (accordion, vibraphones, strings, brass), familiar stylistic leanings flattened to radio scale into two-/three-minute ditties. And a Joey Burns who allows himself extravagant popstar detours.

The record winds between pop trifles well south of the border like "Victor Jara's Hand" (with its mariachi gait) and "Inspiracion" (a kind of "Besame Mucho"), embarrassing pop wave moments ("Two Silver Trees", with its kabuki arpeggio and '80s-style chorus, and the syncopated "Writer's Minor Holiday"), tracks like "Man Made A Lake" and "The News About Williams" (one of the less dreadful of the bunch) where they come across as Moody Blues with a license for feedback and twang, country-pop for couples who lost their virginity on the back of a mechanical bull ("Slowness" and "Red Blooms"); saved from total shipwreck are the Morricone-esque surf-mex of "El Gatillo", the jazzed-up folk-noir of "Bend In The Road", the dub contours of "Fractured Air", and the resurrected post-folk of "Contention Day", the only track to go (just slightly) overboard in length and atmosphere.

In 2012, the new album Algiers doesn't stray from the second phase of Joey Burns and John Convertino's career, but fortunately it holds a surprise in store. Calexico seem to have been practicing in a world that isn't theirs, that of entertainment music, and they overcome the indecision of the previous three albums to craft a cohesive, evocative record, at times moving and always pleasant to listen to.

Of the 12 tracks the Arizona duo recorded in evocative New Orleans, the enveloping "Epic", carried by an excellent vocal performance, the luminous folk-rock of "Splitter", the intriguing crescendo from minimalism to post-rock of "Sinner In The Sea", and the heartfelt ballad "Hush", steeped in rich, resonant ambient textures, stand out as the most emotional and authentic moments. "No Te Vayas", sung in Spanish, instead flows like the most traditional of Mexican popular songs, but wrapped in a broad arrangement that is both modern and melancholic, like an overdub on an old record. Just as alienating are the classic yet restless ballad "Maybe On Monday" and the enigmatic "Puerto", which fuses emotions together.

Finally, the record's gem: the instrumental "Algiers": the title track is in fact a struggle between a carefree Latin groove, surrounded by effects evoking South American coastal atmospheres, and an incisive break of unsettling, pitch-black post-rock.

The sonic world of Calexico thus appears far more streamlined. All the dust that covered their instruments on that dark, fascinating album The Black Light has been (almost) shaken off. The tracks on their ninth album Edge Of The Sun (2015) are clear, effective, majestic, with a refined simplicity that conceals skillful songwriting and production work.

The album opens with "Falling From The Sky", imposing and choral, aided by the electric guitar of Ben Bridwell of Band of Horses. Its chorus is an architecture of horns and bittersweet voices unfolding without nostalgia. Calexico explore the most traditional, well-worn genres of American music, managing to give them a personal twist. "Bullets And Rocks" epitomizes this maturity: second in the tracklist, it has a dry texture in which echoes of the past resound, but which finds its distinctiveness in the horn orchestration with the choruses and melodies. It's a track where echoes of seemingly distant experiences converge too, such as Jeremy Enigk's recent solo work and his records with The Fire Theft. The same goes for "Tapping On The Line", a ballad with a light electro groove, background drones and the delicate backing vocals of Neko Case – one of the album's best tracks – or "Follow The River", featuring Nick Urata of Devotchka, whose vocal phrasing guides the listener all the way to the end, and to the destination. The real stars of the album are the voices: the care put into their writing and recording, their placement among the instruments in the sonic space, from which they always emerge crisp, sharp and clean.

Other tracks draw more heavily on southern folk-rock tradition, like "When The Angels Played" or "Miles From The Sea". Amid bass, drums, acoustic and electric guitars, trumpet, accordion, harmonica, pedal steel guitar and strings appear, alongside a touch of electronic drums, synths and vocal harmonies processed with effects.

The album is also a tribute to the music of Central and South America (especially Mexican and Caribbean), which meets Calexico's sound, sometimes sparked by an unusual arrangement ("Cumbia de Donde", "Calavera"), other times teetering on the edge of disappearing into the source material ("Coyoacán"). "Moon Never Rises" is an excellent meeting point between these two musical worlds, a crossover of sounds that has defined Calexico's exploration ever since 1997. Takim, a traditional Greek music group, play on "World Undone", a folk track with an ambient backdrop. Styles and sounds blossom, different characters appear on the horizon, stories and paths cross. The deluxe edition also includes an unsettling tango – "Roll Tango", one of the album's gems – halfway between Calexico and Tom Waits, between Argentina, Arizona and Greece, with Eric Burdon of the Animals as guest vocal and Takim enriching the ensemble.

Edge Of The Sun closes a chapter of Calexico's career in grand style. The album doesn't easily get "under your skin", but the quality of the writing and production work from within. Each time, you'll find yourself surprised to discover some new element. And, like every Calexico record, it "works best" when listened to at dusk.

Recorded in a huge house in Northern California built from wood and materials salvaged from a shipyard, The Thread That Keeps Us is the band's ninth studio album. The house, called Panoramic House, was nicknamed the "ghost ship" by the two leaders. A peculiar place, one that embodies Calexico's philosophy, the artistic, human and social approach that has always defined their music. Over the years, Convertino and Burns have never stood still, always traveling, playing, meeting new people and collaborating with the most varied musicians. Their way of approaching life is complementary to and intrinsically bound up with music, with the urge to play and perform always, anywhere and anyhow.

Unlike previous works, this time the political undertones of their lyrics unfold through the narration of wildly different human stories. Calexico are outraged. Outraged at how things have turned out in the States after the last presidential election. But not only that. They're tremendously frightened by climate events, by the age-old repetition of dramas like racism. In short, as far as the purely political interpretation of this, their ninth album, is concerned, there's really something for everyone, and the eternal contrast between light and dark, hope and fear, keeps resurfacing. Despite the apparent absence of explicitly protest songs, the album offers solutions that are often not quite in line with the Morricone-esque and mariachi harmonies of the past. Take for instance the opening "End of the World With You", complete with a Built To Spill-style refrain, while the toy-like electronic pulse of "Under The Wheels", paired with the usual gypsy cadence, doesn't particularly stand out, coming across as predictable and obvious despite the initial intention to shuffle the deck. Much better is the path taken on the darker, "noir" funky groove of "Another Space", or on the scratchy, tremendously bluesy rock of "Dead in The Water".

In short, The Thread That Keeps Us is a worthy addition to half the storied history of a band that keeps moving back and forth across the whole planet, and that seems to feel no fatigue, driven as it is by an insatiable desire for deep human and artistic interaction.

In 2019, the collaboration with Iron & Wine returns on Years To Burn.

Even the acclaimed In The Reins suffered from this only seemingly well-conceived duality, in which Sam Beam alternates as vocalist on songs that aren't his and Calexico as arrangers of songs that aren't theirs. In certain moments, the author of "Trapeze Swinger" and countless other memorable melodies has to forget he's first and foremost a great songwriter, reduced to playing backing singer in long "big-stage" suites, built by layering but without a shred of a unifying theme ("The Bitter Suite"). In others, like the opening "What Heaven's Left", the accompaniment (with its insistent country counter-melodies, as in other tracks) does little to add any real freshness to a track that, frankly, feels like an almost automatic gesture for someone like Sam Beam.

Overall, it's a work that's over-arranged relative to the scant sophistication of its songwriting, somewhat recalling the most Calexico-inspired chapter of Iron & Wine's career, the ill-fated "Kiss Each Other Clean". A record built on the pedigree of its makers, which paradoxically manages to offer less than the sum of their parts.

2020 is the year of the inevitable Christmas album.

Seasonal Shift is a singular album of seasonally-themed songs, made up mainly of original material, to which the duo have added a handful of personal reworkings of iconic tracks tied to the holiday par excellence.

It's a sincere, celebratory record, playful in some shades and reflective in others, where the Tucson duo present an array of forms handled with real coherence, drawing on references from Portuguese fado and old Mexican folk songs.

The album ranges between original songs and a few standout covers, such as Tom Petty's “Christmas All Over Again” and “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Burns and Convertino show once again their instrumental chops and sharp flair for crafting wide-ranging, imaginative melodies, lush with cinematic feel and thoroughgoing eclecticism, perfectly suited to this particular, and difficult, period of transition in history.

It won't be the album for which Calexico are remembered down the years, but it can serve as an unusual antidote to the tired old clichés of the usual December fare.

2022 brings El Mirador. Recorded in Tucson at keyboardist Sergio Mendoza's home during monsoon season, when the rain transforms the desert landscape and the earth releases scents hidden away by the drought, in a period of forced inactivity due to lockdown in which the urge to get back on stage pushed the band toward more danceable sounds and more immediate melodies.

Even the title track that opens the album, “El Mirador”, a psychedelic mambo recalling the sulphurous atmospheres of “Touch of Evil”, contains the elements that recur throughout the record: near-Caribbean cadences, the alternation of Spanish and English, abundant female choruses, meticulously crafted horn arrangements, driving violins and jabs of acid guitar.

There are plenty of Spanish-language titles, including two Cumbias: “Cumbia Penisola” and “Cumbia del Polvo”, where even if the rhythms warm up the songs, melancholy is so present in the lyrics that it becomes the true protagonist. But as always it's the desert that draws the thread running through the narrative: in the untamed yearning for redemption that stirs the hearts of its inhabitants in the ticking “Then You Might See”, in the hymn to the regenerating monsoon rains over horizons scorched by dust in “Cumbia del Polvo”, in the slide guitars that glide across its dark dunes alongside the words of poet/songwriter Pieta Brown on the nocturnal “El Paso”, in the glittering stroll beneath starry skies with a soft-footed gait worthy of Chris Isaak on “Cnostellation”. Intense, “Liberada” bears the mark of Cuban influences and restrained militant anger, but there are also nods to the past, in the muted trumpet that flutters among suspended arpeggios very much in the vein of “The Black Light” on the sole instrumental, “Turquoise”, or in the country-punk gallop of “Rancho Azul”, which carries something of the spirit of Giant Sand. The fiesta arrives right on cue with the driving “The El Burro Song”, complete with charging trumpets, violins, accordions, whinnies, yelps and guitarron, though you can already sense the post-binge disorientation creeping in, amid fainted girlfriends and fractured jaws.

Contributions by Ciro Frattini (“In The Reins” and “Garden Ruin”), Simone Coacci (“Carried To Dust”), Rossella De Falco (“Algiers”), Maria Teresa Soldani (“The Edge Of The Sun”), Giuliano Delli Paoli (“The Thread That Keeps Us”), Lorenzo Righetto (“Years To Burn”), Cristiano Orlando (“Seasonal Shift”), Lorenzo Montefreddo (“El Mirador”)

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