Southwest Flavor
* Calexico: Mazurra (3.0 mb) | Sanchez (5.0 mb) | Spokes (5.5 mb) | Stinging Nettle (6.0 mb)
From Spoke : Quarterstick Records : QS51CD
Even from the very beginning, Calexico, the duo of John Convertino and Joey Burns, presented a varied, yet grounded sound. Their music sounded like it arose from the soil, still a little dirty, but beautiful at the same time. Being the rhythm section for fellow Southwesterner, Howe Gelb in Giant Sand, as well as the go to boys for a number of other artists, it’s amazing that they’ve had time to record and develop their own music. But record and develop they have. Constantly pushing their musical boundaries, they’ve managed to inject new flavors into each of their releases.
“A band has got to keep changing and moving or it will get boring and break up,” says CALEXICO’s John Convertino. Fortunately CALEXICO have barely stopped moving for ten years. Even when they’re not on the road – and this band tours hard – they’re recording: for themselves, with others. It’s a tradition that Tucson, Arizona residents Joey Burns and Convertino – the engine that drives CALEXICO – have maintained ever since they worked with another endlessly productive individual with an intense work ethic, Howe Gelb, with whom they constituted Giant Sand for over a decade. And it’s a tradition that ensures that, whatever they’re involved in, it’s going to be at least a little different from what you heard last time. If that wasn’t the case, CALEXICO would still be trading in the lo-fi dusty instrumental cassettes recorded on an answering machine that represented their very first work back in 1996.
(Touch And Go Records)
Since this album, which was recorded in 1995, they’ve expanded their “line-up” to include full on mariachi bands. And while the results have been nothing short of amazing, my favorite album will always be their first, Spoke. There’s a beautiful rawness to it that just breaks my heart.
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