US band CALEXICO paints the desert in unusual dark colours

21. February 2018

Calexico

US band CALEXICO paints the desert in unusual dark colours

In the current music landscape there are hardly any more active figures than Joey Burns and John Convertino. They started as the rhythm section of Giant Sand and the Friends Of Dean Martinez, strengthened the backs of such different musicians as Amparanoia, Barbara Manning, De Pedro, Iron & Wine or Neko Case and defined Calexico as a gentle but committed desert rock. Twenty years after their foundation, they are taking a new step.

The sound of Calexico was warm, binding and friendly from the very beginning, it placed different components next to each other on an equal footing. But dark clouds are coming up in the USA. The band from Tucson, Arizona, which was named after a border town between the USA and Mexico, has always been committed to understanding between the two countries. Especially when they come to the formerly divided city of Berlin, Burns and Convertino can't believe that the US president wants to loosen billions of dollars to build an insurmountable wall between their homeland and Mexico.

The sound of their new album "The Thread That Keeps Us" captures this mood. Never before had they been so gloomy and melancholic on an album. Burns, always trying to keep his cool, shakes his head discouraged. "That's just bizarre. People make money with this fucking madness. One always thinks that all this extremism cannot go any further, and then it just goes on. We were always pushed by the outside world as a band. It's the same with the new record."

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