Calexico (USA)
From Tucson, Arizona, guitarist Joey Burns and drummer John Convertino have spent 12 years exploring all manner of dusty low-fi and compelling sound noir experiments through their eclectic band Calexico. Having first played in the band Giant Sand while studying music at the University of California, Joey and John moved to Tucson and by 1996 had gathered a floating line-up of musicians to work as Calexico. It grew into a prolific creative outfit over six studio albums with influences ranging across a wide prairie, especially traditional Mariachi Tejano music and Southwestern country music – reflecting the band name, taken from a southern California border town. The band solidified around the recording of its 2003 album Feast of Wire to include a multinational cast of regular members: Germans Volker Zander (upright bass) and Martin Wenk (accordion, guitar, synthesisers, trumpet), Tuscon’s Jacob Valenuela (keyboards, trumpet, vibraphone) and Paul Niehaus (slide guitar). Staying true to John’s assumption that “a band has got to keep changing and moving or it will get boring and break up”, the 2008 album Carried to Dust offers an especially heady mix, bringing alt country into collusion with Spanish horns, Portuguese fado, surf guitar and haunting strains of ambient jazz.
By arrangement with Billions Australia
Website: www.casadecalexico.com