Calexico play Border Music in such an expansive fashion as to include a myriad of avant-garde and traditional styles. Cinematic in its scope and it bleeds out of genre boundaries. Post Rock is reductive. Desert Noir is better. Cosmic Americana is hipster cool.
Calexico is a border town at the bottom of California. One gateway to the promised land for Latin America. A dream state and a place of myth as much as it is a physical space.
Calexico are celebrating their breakout album Feast of Wire (2003). The band came together in Tucson, Arizona in 1996 with Joey Burns, lead vocals, guitars and much more, and John Convertino drums.
Burns looks like a hipster with a Stetson (probably) hat and a relaxed laconic demeanour. He projects warmth and charm, but he retains that William Burroughs anti-hero Beat poet edge in his vocals and in the lyrical content of the songs.
Convertino is the powerhouse engine deep in the heart of the band, which cannot be overstated. He is across everything and the benevolent dictator which holds the music together in similar fashion to Hal Blaine of the legendary Wrecking Crew.
The rest on stage with reasonable certainty. Brian Lopez guitars and bass. Jacob Valenzuela, Martin Wenk, Sergio Mendoza cover accordion, trumpets, xylophones or marimbas, keyboards, percussion, guitars, and lap steel amongst themselves.
Trumpets play in typical Mariachi style and come to the fore often. The accordion is in norteña style although it does not dominate. It adds a necessary texture.
They run through most of Feast of Wire. The music can be multi layered and it can be sparse and spectral.
It is a soundtrack to a movie, the closest of which is David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch. Which is wildly experimental itself.
It is informed by Burrough’s time in exile in Mexico, when he accidently shot and killed his wife playing William Tell with a pistol.
The bar in the border town where we encounter the Mugwumps would be where Calexico’s music would be playing.
Not Even Stevie Nicks is expanded out. The music billows and reflects a big country and the weather over a large land mass. The drums are huge and lead a rhythmic attack. Love Will Tear Us Apart appears as if by invocation. Sung acapella near the end until the guitars squall.
Attack El Robot! Attack galumphs along in a mash-up of Harry Partch, Tom Waits, and the thronged sound of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts from Byrne and Eno. Trumpets play soft Jazz. Melodic and seductive rather than edgy.
Woven Birds. I wonder if the singer sounds like Lee Hazelwood, even though he is a tenor. Rattlesnakes from the percussion are heard. He’s probably closer to Ryan Adams in tone.
Black Heart. Where we first hear the lap steel tonight. It can weep and sound other-worldly like a musical saw or a theremin.
Dub Latina. The accordion is playing a polka on the hacienda. Guitars play Mexican Surf music and bend Dick Dale from the Middle Eastern Miserlou.
Alone Again Or, originally from Arthur Lee and Love, has Latin Jazz and some Blues licks all over it from the guitars.
Guero Canelo takes the guitar twang, and that Mexican Surf is hit with a galloping backbeat. We hear echoes of Ry Cooder’s Dictionary of Americana. A Spanish Stroll vocal cameo completes the package nicely.
Ebony Lamb opens the show tonight, and she lays out a captivating vocal performance.
I first encountered her as leader of the band Eb and Sparrow. Country Americana, and she was appearing in the Southern American Music Series that the Tuning Fork did so well for several years.
She moved on to solo work and has become an alternative Folk Noir artist and draws favourable comparisons to Nadia Reid.
Her great self-titled debut album has been released on Reid’s label and produced by Bic Runga and Kody Nielson.
Tonight, she has stripped the usual band back just to her on guitar and Phoebe Johnson on electric bass.
Lamb’s strong, witchy, and keening voice is to the fore.
The bass guitar keeps up with her in a jazzy personified style.
Midnight is my Name, off the album, is not as spectral as her first few songs and swings with a twanging note-bending guitar.
Darkest eyes, tattoo green/ See him talking on the TV screen/ 1979. Part of a pivotal time in New Zealand leading up to the Springbok Tour in 1981, but I can’t recognise him.
Brother Get Me Home also hits a sweet spot as the bass carries all the melody. She can sing soulful Folk.
The crowd are quiet and respectful, and she gives thanks for that. Pointing out it’s never like that at the rowdy Powerstation in her memory.
Calexico end their celebration of Feast with No Doze. Full blown Desert Noir and the lap steel is mesmerising. But the drummer signals the change as he rolls out a tribal rhythm. You feel the throb through the floor and up your spine.
American Indian tones and by alchemy the ghost of Charley Patton appears.
The band is not finished yet and they roll out three stand-out songs.
Man-Made Lake is a David Lynch dread story. I’m gonna walk these streets/ Like I’m a ghost searching for its grave. Dirty guitar riffs and brilliant drum fills.
Crystal Frontier has everything including the kitchen sink but it all gels perfectly. Electronic parrot percussion, funk guitar patterns, the trumpets get a cameo at the bridge. The drummer has the first AND the last say.
As it should be for Calexico and their Cosmic Desert Americana.
Rev. Orange Peel
Photography by Leonie Moreland
Calexico
Ebony Lamb
