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Music : Carried to Dust
Rating: 
- Enter planet dust (8.5/10)
`Carried to Dust` is Calexico's most mature work to date, arguably the best synthesis of their frontier atmospherics and Latin-inflected country songwriting. The follow-up to 2005's much-dismissed `Garden Ruin', `Carried to Dust' makes the `South-Western noir' tag stick better than any other Calexico album. It's a record of great dusky beauty, varied and unusual musicianship and haunting songs. More understated than their aknowledged masterpiece `Feast of Wire`, `Carried to Dust' may pass that benchmark in time with its flickering, insidious quality. Cinematic but subtle, whispery yet substantial, there are fewer straight-out brooding Enio Morricone instrumentals, only one blatant Tex-Mex jam. The album is largely song-orientated but, unlike Garden Ruin, deftly impressionistic, with ghostly electronic touches that recall Wilco's `Ghost is Born`, Bon Iver's `Emma, Forever Ago`, and the work of long-term collaborator Iron & Wine, aka Samuel Beam, who features here on the sublime `House Of Valparaiso'.
Despite working with a number of guest singers and musicians (also including Canadian singer Pieta Brown and Amparanoia's Amparo Sanchez) Joey Burns and John Convertino have been successful in qwelling the magpie-ish tendencies of previous albums, sustaining a coherent mood over a (thankfully) more concise 45 minutes. While it may not have the epic scope and more various thrills of `Feast of Wire', `Carried to Dust' is a more focused album - the sound of a band comfortable with their, um, sound, and the possibilities it presents. As much as I loved the border country schtick that made them famous, I always felt that band were doomed to pigeonholing and it is great to hear them pull off an album of songs without compromising their South-Western soul. Better still, `Carried to Dust''s moods are rarely prosaic - less readily associated with the default American landcapes of earlier albums.
Aside from the wonderful `House of Valparaiso', other album highlights include the glimmering oriental harps of `Two Silver Trees' or the polished, Chris Isaak noir of `Man Made Lake' - fuzzy guitars and minor key glockespiel conspiring towards a blissful dissonance. The seafarer's poem `The News About William' recalls Fleet Foxes' romantic folk, but what Joey Burns lacks as a singer compared to Robin Pecknold, Calexico compensate with a musical tapestry richer than that of their contemporaries. `Writer's Minor Holliday', with its backing vocal sighs from Adrienne DeNIke and swaggering rhythm section, echoes James Jackson Toth's fine solo debut `Waiting In Vain`. While `Slowness' is a hazy country duet between Burns and Pieta - with all the gorgeous steel pedal twang you could ever hope for - `Inspiracion' is skeletal Latin folk, Tom Waits at a Dia De Los Muertos procession. Enjoy!
- Enter planet dust (8.5/10)`Carried to Dust` is Calexico's most mature work to date, arguably the best synthesis of their frontier atmospherics and Latin-inflected country songwriting. The follow-up to 2005's much-dismissed `Garden Ruin', `Carried to Dust' makes the `South-Western noir' tag stick better than any other Calexico album. It's a record of great dusky beauty, varied and unusual musicianship and haunting songs. More understated than their aknowledged masterpiece `Feast of Wire`, `Carried to Dust' may pass that benchmark in time with its flickering, insidious quality. Cinematic but subtle, whispery yet substantial, there are fewer straight-out brooding Enio Morricone instrumentals, only one blatant Tex-Mex jam. The album is largely song-orientated but, unlike Garden Ruin, deftly impressionistic, with ghostly electronic touches that recall Wilco's `Ghost is Born`, Bon Iver's `Emma, Forever Ago`, and the work of long-term collaborator Iron & Wine, aka Samuel Beam, who features here on the sublime `House Of Valparaiso'.
Despite working with a number of guest singers and musicians (also including Canadian singer Pieta Brown and Amparanoia's Amparo Sanchez) Joey Burns and John Convertino have been successful in qwelling the magpie-ish tendencies of previous albums, sustaining a coherent mood over a (thankfully) more concise 45 minutes. While it may not have the epic scope and more various thrills of `Feast of Wire', `Carried to Dust' is a more focused album - the sound of a band comfortable with their, um, sound, and the possibilities it presents. As much as I loved the border country schtick that made them famous, I always felt that band were doomed to pigeonholing and it is great to hear them pull off an album of songs without compromising their South-Western soul. Better still, `Carried to Dust''s moods are rarely prosaic - less readily associated with the default American landcapes of earlier albums.
Aside from the wonderful `House of Valparaiso', other album highlights include the glimmering oriental harps of `Two Silver Trees' or the polished, Chris Isaak noir of `Man Made Lake' - fuzzy guitars and minor key glockespiel conspiring towards a blissful dissonance. The seafarer's poem `The News About William' recalls Fleet Foxes' romantic folk, but what Joey Burns lacks as a singer compared to Robin Pecknold, Calexico compensate with a musical tapestry richer than that of their contemporaries. `Writer's Minor Holliday', with its backing vocal sighs from Adrienne DeNIke and swaggering rhythm section, echoes James Jackson Toth's fine solo debut `Waiting In Vain`. While `Slowness' is a hazy country duet between Burns and Pieta - with all the gorgeous steel pedal twang you could ever hope for - `Inspiracion' is skeletal Latin folk, Tom Waits at a Dia De Los Muertos procession. Enjoy!