Ask the Dust
Calexico
Carried To Dust
(City Slang)
Calexico? Cue dustbowl prose about hazy desert mirages, roadhouse waltzes and seventy different shades of Texarcana. From the opening ‘Victor Jara’s Hand’ (so close to traditional Tex-Mex it could be Los Lobos after a night on the rum) to the closing ‘Contention City’ (Sparklehorse with spurs) the sextet swing from the orthodox to the outré with ease. Sure, the reviewer could list off song titles and ascribe musical characteristics to each one: gorgeous tremelo guitars, braying mariachi brass fanfares, eerie pedal steel, shimmering omnichord, nylon string guitar interludes, whispering, confidential vocals. But it might be more useful to describe Carried To Dust as an audio log of a mondo weekend spent in the last bordertown on earth. We’ve read the story, seen the movie, gotten the tattoo. Here’s a nightscape of dodgy motels, decrepit filling stations and lean-to shacks populated by stray dogs, aged jailbait in babydoll dresses, mystery men looking to shed their identities like snakeskin, and whiskery Mephistopholean ranchers sat on front porches sipping Bud and delivering portentous, gnomic utterences out the sides of their gap toothed gobs. In other words, Barry Gifford country, the permanently erected set of Wild At Heart or U-Turn.
That’s another fine Calexico record you’ve gotten us into.