Carried To Dust Album Review
Calexico's Sixth Record Returns to Southwest Sound
When Calexico released Garden Ruin in 2008, everyone was immediately up in arms--and justifiably so. Fans invested in the poetic band’s musical development had come to expect more. After being treated to The Black Light and 2003’s seminal Feast of Wire, few were satisfied with Garden Ruin. Gone was the southwestern flavor and dramatic landscape.
It sounded as if they packed up and left the desert and moved into a plush, modern high rise. But if they were just gazing east toward the Sonoran desert on Garden Ruin, the return to their cinematic spaghetti western scenery is that much more poignant on Carried to Dust. Calexico certainly seems to be back.
Comparison To Feast Of Wire
Joey Burns and John Convertino return with a record that inevitably draws some comparisons to Feast of Wire. They both follow a logical storyline that plays out like a trip across the baked yellow sand. The premise of Dust was influenced by the 2007 writer’s guild strike. Burn’s story is of a television writer who wanders east from Los Angeles and finds himself in the Mojave Desert.
Tribute To Victor Jara
Even without liner notes to paint a picture, Calexico’s music evokes panoramic images. That is what makes them so endearing. The opening track, Victor Jara’s Hands is a tribute to the Chilean political activist and multifarious artist who was tortured and killed by Pinochet’s police. It has the poetic verse, ethereal guitar background and poignant chorus that everyone has come to expect from Calexico.
Two Silver Trees blends a wide array of instruments. Glockenspiel, marimba, guizeng, banjo and omnichord produce an humid Asian tingle that hybridizes with Burns’ hushed whisper. The News About William is a lonely waltz that sees trumpets slow dancing with violins locked in a sad embrace. Burns’ voice is gaunt and twangy, full of melancholy as he sings: “ Boarded up the windows with pain and with pride. The music box broken that once was his soul.”
Cinematic Music
Deep, ghostly piano chords and guitar maintain the dark foreboding atmosphere going on Man Made Lake. A pretty glockenspiel introduction is quickly overtaken by ominous lyrics: “I’m gonna walk these streets of cold concrete like I’m ghost searching for its grave.” A Paul Niehaus fuzz guitar solo full of shimmering dissonance climaxes as Burns repeats, “Someone‘s callin‘ for me.”
A bit of mariachi follows as Amparo Sanchez and Jacob Valenzuela’s voices intertwine on Inspiracion. Iron and Wine’s Sam Beam and Burns play call and response on House of Valparaiso and it really becomes evident after this pair of songs that Calexico has really hit its stride. Their combination of authentic Latin sounds in the pop format works beautifully.
Pieta Brown’s lusty drawl almost sounds like Lucinda Williams on Slowness which exudes the best elements of country. Niehaus’ pedal steel hangs like a cloud of red dust in the air as the image of a couple watching the sun set on a couple of plastic rockers outside their desert trailer crops up.
The imagery continues on El Gatillo (Trigger Revisited) which harkens a dramatic Sergio Leone gun down scene a la Ennio Morricone and the misty Contention City where Burns’ spacey lyrics float in and out of a swirling brume of toy piano steel guitars and throbbing Wurlitzer.
Victor Gastelum
Calexico’s album covers have come to be recognized by the artwork of Victor Gastelum’s artwork. His combination of spray paint and stencil instantly identifies his collaboration with the band. In another similarity to Feast of Wire, Carried to Dust depicts a young woman in a tank top behind the wheel of a fifties cruiser headed into a fragmented landscape.
Without taking anything away from Joey Burns’ songwriting, what really stands out is the production of this album. There is so much tactful musicianship and wonderful interpretation at the hands of Burns, Convertino, Tortoise’s Doug McCombs and everyone else that every listen yields some new aural discovery.
Carried to Dust Album Cover
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