Known for their ability to adapt to working with other musicians — from Nancy Sinatra to Neko Case — the cast on CARRIED TO DUST includes Sam Beam, who appears on ‘House Of Valparaiso’, a furthering of their work together on Iron And Wine’s breakthrough release In the Reins. Tortoise/Brokeback mainstay Douglas McCombs contributes to the ghostly sounds of album closer ‘Contention City’, and Pieta Brown lends her plaintive charms to ‘Slowness’, “one of the album’s few love songs”. Amparo Sanchez (of Amparanoia, whose solo debut was recently recorded in Tucson with CALEXICO and who appeared on fourth album Garden Ruin) guests on ‘Inpiración’, while Jairo Zavala — another acclaimed Spanish artist to benefit from CALEXICO’s production and playing skills on his forthcoming album — contributes to a number of tracks, including the upbeat opener ‘Victor Jara’s Hands’. Meanwhile, on ‘Bend To The Road’, Mickey Raphael — whom CALEXICO met while working on the soundtrack to the acclaimed Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There, shows why his understated harmonica skills have not only earned him a place in Willie Nelson’s band since the mid 1970s, but have also seen him work with the likes of U2, Emmy Lou Harris and Neil Young.

“The collaborative side to what we do is probably most recognizable on this album,” Calexico’s Joey Burns states proudly. “Over the years we’ve played on many people’s albums and done remixes for groups like Goldfrapp, Arcade Fire and Gotan Project. I had this idea to do a straight up band album with all our members and then next, record an album where we back up a bunch of guests we’ve worked with in the past or who we’d always want to work with. The more I mentioned this idea, the easier it seemed to ask friends to sit in on current songs. All these distinctly different parts work in their own way to highlight the many aspects of our sound and feel. Whether from Barcelona, Berlin, Austin or Iowa City, there is a thread that flows through our music.”

Of course CALEXICO these days is a band, something that became most apparent on their 2006 album Garden Ruin, when Burns and Convertino were joined by regular cohorts pedal steel player Paul Niehaus, Volker Zander (bass, upright bass) and multi-instrumentalists Martin Wenk and Jacob Valenzuela (who also takes lead vocal for the first time on ‘Inspiración’ alongside Amparo Sanchez) for the writing and recording sessions. “We knew we wanted to embrace some sweeping changes,” Burns recalls, “and we wanted to experiment more with mixing in a different studio with a producer. We even asked a different artist to help with the artwork. There will always be that desire to move forward with this band. We rarely seek to repeat or return to formula.”

CARRIED TO DUST sees them build on that experience, but — inevitably — refuse to replicate it. “After trying that,” Burns continues, “John and I preferred the more stripped down approach, adding each musician and band member one at a time. They all bring creative ideas to the table, but there is a definite direction and aesthetic that John and I oversee throughout the whole process.”

“I think trying to keep the whole band around during the entire making of Garden Ruin slowed things down quite a bit,” Convertino elaborates. “We most assuredly had great moments of fun doing that, but I think this time we wanted to have that initial two piece set up that allows for these open ended rhythm tracks, tracks that can later be messed around with, band members and guests alike having loads of fun all over the top. It seems like this record had that kind of humble beginning, just two guys sitting down to play some music. It translates more to the individual.”

The experience clearly invigorated them. Working in the familiar environment of Wavelab Studios in their hometown of Tucson after their longest break from touring, Calexico returned to more familiar creative methods, while at the same time refining the band’s sound and the quality of the recording. They also recorded with Nick Luca, a long term on-and-off collaborator with a studio in the same building. “He is amazing,” Burns declares. “He has this ability to get inside our music. He plays with us live quite a bit in the States and brings this knowledge into the studio.” Garden Ruin sought to be a ‘big’ record, in keeping with the vast crowds that Calexico were by now playing to, but CARRIED TO DUST seeks to address each individual in their audience by allowing the natural creaks and echoes to be a feature of the band once again. The final album is arguably CALEXICO’s best recorded to date, one that reaches beyond their lo-fi roots without sacrificing any of the detail that has made them such a unique band.

As well as shaking up their studio approach, the album reflects Burns’ continually developing skills as a lyricist. Considerably more impressionistic than Garden Ruin, which reflected their fury and frustration at the Bush regime, CARRIED TO DUST “stems more from a traveller’s journal than a work book,” Burns confirms, suggesting that the record is “more inward looking, fractured and abstract”. Having said that, the band spends huge amounts of time touring, the many countries they have visited also providing inspiration. ‘Victor Jara’s Hands’ illustrates this most clearly: Jara was a Chilean theatre director, singer songwriter and political activist who was arrested, tortured and ultimately murdered following the 1973 US-endorsed Chilean coup. “We met some memorable people when we toured Argentina and Chile and they turned us on to a lot of unknown music back home, including Victor Jara. His story resonates with a lot of what is going on today — Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib — and stood out strong and tall. Furthermore, some of the younger people we met in Chile were brought up in families living in exile during the 70’s and 80’s. Their story worked its way into the song ‘House Of Valparaiso’.”

One of CARRIED TO DUST’s defining moments is penultimate track ‘Red Blooms’, a song that emphasises the way that CALEXICO remain as creatively restless as ever. Over Convertino’s typically dry, rolling drums and the band’s ghostly arrangements, Burns whispers a tale of “blackened frostbitten nights… statues cloaked in white… and shadows drinking anti-freeze beneath the underpass.” If the themes seem familiar to those who have followed CALEXICO since their start — Burns has written of poverty and abandonment on a number of occasions — the song serves as a stark reminder that CALEXICO continue to reserve the right to surprise their audience: the song talks of a place “crossed out on city maps, Prospekt Mira”, revealing that our Los Angeles writer’s map has taken us all the way to Moscow. It is one of the many unexpected moments that litter CARRIED TO DUST much as the ghost of tumbleweed figured so largely in their early recordings, and stands as confirmation that CALEXICO’s muse remains as magical and inventive as always. “Spontaneity’s spark” carries them ever further.

CALEXICO “Carried to Dust” on CD

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