Calexico

Calexico is a city in California whose name merges the beginning of the word "California" with the ending of the word "Mexico". A crossing point, a koinè, if you will, but also a borderline: it's not California, yet it's not Mexico either; it's both, and something more besides. This is the distinctive quality of the word "Calexico", beyond its geographical reference, and it's what captivated Joey Burns and John Convertino, formerly bass and percussion respectively in Howe Gelb's Giant Sand, who in 1996 decided to launch a new musical project bearing that very name.

In 1997 they released their debut album, "Spoke", to a fairly muted reception: their formula blended folk and country, Bob Dylan and Giant Sand, spaghetti western atmospheres and Mexican moods. The result was intriguing, but lacked cohesion; indeed, it would have been unrealistic to expect the Tucson, Arizona duo to coherently fuse such disparate stylistic elements right out of the gate.

With "The Black Light", however, the Burns-Convertino partnership hits the jackpot: their second effort not only keeps in perfect balance the elements that sat somewhat at odds on "Spoke", but miraculously adds new ones, expanding the already broad sonic horizons of their debut both overseas and into South America.

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

On this record, 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 (a large Mexican guitar), Nick Luca on classical guitar, and the three trumpeters Rigo Pedroza, Fernando Sanchez and Al Tapatio.

The tracklist consists of seventeen tracks, of which only six ("The Ride", "The Black Light", "Missing", "Trigger", "Stray" and "Bloodflow") feature vocal parts; the remaining eleven tracks are all instrumentals.

Calexico's music grabs you from the very first listen with its cinematic fascinations: "Gypsy's Curse", the opening track, "Frontera", the closer, and "The Ride" are border rides accompanied by mariachi trumpets and desert guitars. Looking closer, these are reckless on the road tales that wouldn't have looked out of place as the sonic backdrop to Robert Rodriguez's early films.

Tracks like "The Black Light", "Missing" and "Bloodflow", on the other hand, veer toward jazzy, nocturnal atmospheres, giving themselves over to stretched-out chords and convoluted rhythms reminiscent of certain Louisville post-rock. Behind these songs, sung almost in a whisper by Burns, lies the most melancholic (the aching steel guitar in the vein of Neil Young) and refined (Convertino's supple brushwork) side of Calexico.

Every track on the album is worth noting, but among the many it's worth singling out, in particular, the mournful chamber sonata for cello, vibraphone and guitar of "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 propped up by upright bass and metallic percussion, while the steel guitar lingers 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?

With "The Black Light", Calexico breathe new life into traditional music, and not just American traditions. Theirs is a new way of conceiving roots-rock, seen not as a one-directional, specific rediscovery of musical roots but as a global one. But there's more to it: behind Burns and Convertino's seemingly playful nature lie, in reality, passionate and cultured musicians, existentialists in the most extreme cases.

In the late Nineties, a decade in which rock kept constantly looking forward, Calexico turned their gaze backward, exhuming, with the austere rigor of ethnomusicologists, music from distant times and places, thus arriving at a form of postmodern roots-rock.

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03/07/2007