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Calexico (band)

Calexico is an American indie rock band based in Tucson, Arizona.[2] Founded in 1996, the band's two main members, Joey Burns and John Convertino, first played together in Los Angeles as part of the group Giant Sand. They have recorded a number of albums on Quarterstick Records and City Slang, and their 2005 EP, In the Reins, recorded with Iron & Wine, reached the Billboard 200 album charts. Their musical style is influenced by traditional Latin sounds of mariachi, conjunto, cumbia, and tejano mixed with country, jazz, and post-rock.

Calexico

1996–present

Joey Burns
John Convertino
Scott Colberg
Jacob Valenzuela
Martin Wenk
Sergio Mendoza
Jairo Zavala
Brian Lopez

The band is named for the border town of Calexico, California, and has been described by some as "desert noir".[3]

Joey Burns (1996 - present) – vocals, guitars, bass, cello, piano, keyboards, accordion, percussion, vibraphone

[2]

John Convertino (1996 - present) – drums

[2]

Jacob Valenzuela – trumpet, vocals, keyboards, vibraphone

Martin Wenk – trumpet, guitar, keyboards, accordion, glockenspiel, vibraphone, theremin, vocals (occasionally harmonica & French horn)

Scott Colberg – standup bass, electric bass

[10] – keyboards, accordion, percussion

Sergio Mendoza

(1996)

Spoke

(1998)

The Black Light

(2000)

Hot Rail

(2003, reissued 2023)

Feast of Wire

(2006)

Garden Ruin

(2008)

Carried to Dust

(2012)

Algiers

(2015)

Edge of the Sun

(2018)

The Thread That Keeps Us

(with Iron & Wine) (2019)[15]

Years to Burn

(2020)

Seasonal Shift

El Mirador (2022)

[19]

Critical acclaim[edit]

Their debut album Spoke received three stars from AllMusic, which called the album "a Santa Fe rummage sale of sounds."[20] Their second album The Black Light, released in 1998, gained the band notoriety and attention. AllMusic praised this sophomore effort and gave the album 4.5 stars. The album was praised for being "deeper and richer than their debut."[21]


Hot Rail was released in 2000 and continued off the success of previous albums. Pitchfork gave the album a 7.9.[22] The band then took a brief hiatus and released their next studio album in 2003, Feast of Wire. The album received an 8.9 from Pitchfork, which described it as "the album we always knew they had in them but feared they would never make."[23]


Feast of Wire was well received by Mojo, describing the 2003 album as, “Seductive, stirring songs about crushed hope and the corruption of beauty and some of their most ambitious arrangements make this their most fully-realised and accomplished album”.


Again after another hiatus, Calexico returned in 2006 with Garden Ruin. Amazon gave their album a 90/100 and described it as "what Sigur Ros might sound like if they came from Arizona, and it's truly excellent."[24] In 2008, came Carried to Dust. By now Calexico was already established as a band who meticulously created beautiful albums. This success continued with Carried to Dust receiving 4.5 stars from AllMusic. Describing the album as "their most balanced, channeling their experience and potential into a subtly dramatic, chiaroscuro tour de force."[25]


2012 was a busy year for Calexico, giving birth to a new album titled Algiers. The A.V. Club gave the album an A−.[26] Another studio album came in 2015; titled Edge of the Sun. This album also received high ranks from reviewers. Rough Trade called it the twenty-first best album of 2015.[27] Their most recent studio album came in 2018, The Thread That Keeps Us. Exclaim! rated the album a 4 out of 10.[28]

discography at Discogs

Calexico