Country rock band Calexico stakes out new frontiers

By Michael D. Ayers

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Over the past decade, many people have heard the band Calexico without knowing who they were listening to. Its Tex-Mex country rock sounds have been featured on countless NPR segment segues and Starbucks compilations.

Most recently, the group served as one of two "house bands" on the Bob Dylan biopic soundtrack "I'm Not There," backing My Morning Jacket's Jim James, Iron & Wine's Sam Beam and Willie Nelson.

But Calexico is under the radar no longer, thanks to two big releases in 2006 that posted impressive sales. That year's "Garden Ruin" (Touch & Go) has sold 45,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, while "In the Reins," a collaborative EP with Beam, moved 92,000. In support of the latter, the two acts launched a unique tour, with each playing a set of its own material and then returning to share the stage to play "In the Reins" tracks.

It's all proving to be important in the setup for the next Calexico album, "Carried to Dust," due September 9. A sampler of all the musical exploration the band has undertaken to date, the set stems from what guitarist/vocalist Joey Burns says is a newfound confidence.

"I feel the main thread here is movement," Burns says. "I think we've been fortunate to have all these different projects. There's a lot of imagination in the music, and I think that because it's all over the map. It's indicating its diversity."

Noting that the process of creating the new album was "less about the performances and more about the technique of recording," Burns says that the band "had a wide range of expression to choose from, and this time we were just loose and open to more beautiful mistakes."

Calexico launches an extensive European tour September 10 in Dublin, with six U.S. dates during the last week of the month.

Reuters/Billboard