Calexico Still Love Variety

11/13/08 2:13pm

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

One of the first things you may notice about Calexico's sixth studio album, Carried To Dust, is the number of collaborations on it. The disc includes guest spots from Iron & Wine's Sam Beam (who Calexico worked with on 2005's In The Reins EP), singer/songwriter Pieta Brown, Tortoise's Doug McCombs and many others.

Calexico singer/guitarist Joey Burns says Cityslang Records, the band's European label, suggested a collaborative record several years ago. Burns thought it was a good idea, but, at that time, wanted to do a regular Calexico album instead. When it came time to record Carried To Dust, Burns and drummer John Convertino began asking their friends and other musicians to help out.

Though the collaborations could easily have been shelved for a project like the one described above, Burns says it made more sense to use them on a proper Calexico studio album.

"It kind of felt good. It felt more natural than not. It felt like what we do live, 'cause we do so many collaborations when we go on tour. We're always inviting guests to come up on stage or to come with us for a week or so on the road.

"It wound up working pretty well. I like the fact that that element really set this album apart from all the other ones in the past."

Carried To Dust is very much influenced by travel and discovery on the road. It tells the story of a writer who leaves California during the screenwriter's strike and takes to the road to search for inspiration.

Travel is something that Calexico – completed by Paul Niehaus, Jacob Valenzuela, Martin Wenk and Volker Zandler – know a great deal about. Not only are the band members from all over North America, but they also travelled to Argentina and Chile last year.

That visit is directly reflected in Carried To Dust, mainly in lead track "Victor Jara's Hands" and "House Of Valparaiso." The former is named after a celebrated Chilean singer/songwriter and poet who was executed by Augusto Pinochet's troops, while the latter takes its moniker from a picturesque Chilean town overlooking the Pacific Ocean that was immortalized in the poems of Pablo Neruda.

Calexico have always melded Mexican and other Latin music with indie rock, jazz, various forms of folk and other musical styles. But their trip to Latin America means Carried To Dust is more like 2003's Feast Of Wire than 2006's more straightforward, indie rock-ish Garden Ruin.

"On this record, I think we just wanted to have more of that eclectic, quirky, strange instrumentation, but definitely with that soulful pulse underneath," Burns says. "We really do love that variety, and I think we wanted to let that variety – whether it be songs with cello, or songs with brushes, or songs with trumpets or pedal steel – allow all the songs to really soar and let them shine, and not try to minimalize them in the mix or production. Giving all the instruments their due was the goal."

You can see Calexico showcase songs from Carried To Dust at Montreal's Le National on Nov. 17 and Toronto's Phoenix Concert Theatre the next night.