Feast of Wire

Many years ago I picked up an album by a group called Calexico called Hot Rail. I liked it very much, and put their next album, 2003's Feast of Wire, on my Amazon wish list. There it sat, and finally, after more than ten years, I bought it. I love it; it's even better than Hot Rail.

Calexico are a couple of Americans--Joey Burns and John Convertino, plus a lot of other contributing musicians--who play a kind of amalgamation of rock and roll, jazz, and traditional Mexican music. The opening track, "Sunken Waltz," has the unmistakable sound Mexican sound of accordions. The album is full of Latin horn riffs and steel guitar. But it's impossible to classify Calexico's sound simply as border music. Perhaps the other term that's used, desert noir, is more fitting.

While many of the songs do sound Mexican, some certainly do not. "Not Even Stevie Nicks," with an enigmatic title and even more enigmatic lyrics:

"With a head like a vulture
and heart full of hornets
he drives off the cliff
and into the blue
not even the priestess
with her wrenches and
secret powers
could save (steer) him
from danger for a little while
not even she could save him"

sounds a lot like an emo-rock song, say by Death Cab for Cutie. "Crumble," an instrumental, is straight-up jazz, with a great trumpet solo by Jacob Valenzeula. "Black Heart" is sort of an art-rock song, dominated by a keening violin that sounds as if it's in its death throes. "Close Behind" sounds like the opening theme to a great Spaghetti Western, and "Across the Wire" is a traditional Mexican ballad.

My favorite tracks are two instrumentals. "Attack El Robot! Attack!" has a sci-fi sound, with a terrific minor key hook, and "Guero Canelo," which was featured on the soundtrack of Michael Mann's Collateral, is a groovy finger-snapping boogie with vocals that sound like a bullfrog. After a little research I find that Guero Canelo means "Cinnamon Blonde," although there is some dispute about this.

Calexico has made quite a few more albums in the meantime, and have a couple dating from before Hot Rail. Hopefully I'll get to the next one before a decade has passed--I just don't have that much more time.