Calexico

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Calexico
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Joey Burns and John Convertino took their band's name from a dusty city in the California desert. The city, Calexico, is adjacent to the Mexican town of Mexicali, like two lean-tos propped against each other. While the Mexican border lies right at the seam, separating the two, Burns and Convertino—finding great poignancy in the moniker—have forged their own genre of blurred Mexican and American sounds for years.

Their music has consistently mixed mariachi, jazz, and indie rock. At times the sound is akin to one of Wilco’s alt-country forays; at others it seems to have been lifted straight from the soundtrack of a spaghetti western film Sergio Leone never made.

The band reached their highest level of commercial success with 2005’s In the Reins, a joint EP with Iron and Wine. Sam Beam (of Iron and Wine) wrote the songs for the album, and the two groups recorded them jointly. This time, Beam lends his airy vocals to the haunting “House of Valparaiso,” a blend of Spanish horns and classical guitar in classic Calexico fashion. “Bend in the Road” employs Joey Burns in all his Marc Knopfler-esque glory, his wispy vocals and simple guitar arrangements joining well-placed horn accents to produce a subtle tension in the sound.

The track “Two Silver Trees” shines particularly brightly in the desert pastiche. With jangly piano runs and reverberating symbols, it’s the album’s most lavish work of instrumentation. “Inspiracion” highlights the band’s perennial accessibility issue—the song would be much likelier to come from Mexicali than Calexico. On it, the band distinctly fuses mariachi music with, uh, mariachi music, and little else. But, this unabashed embrace of all things south of the border is what makes this eccentric duo different. Their ability to fuse traditional Mexican music with something as American as indie rock has gained them a legion of fans and built them a virtually unchallenged niche in the modern music scene.

Calexico will play September 26th at the Moore Theatre in Seattle. Carried to Dust was released September 9th on Quarterstick records.