Calexico

Bridging the worlds of indie rock and sprawling Americana roots music, Calexico's portraits of southern border towns and warm, culture-melding grooves have won a heap of critical acclaim and made them a hugely respected force in the alternative country and US folk scenes since first emerging in the mid-1990s. Naming the band after a small Californian town on the Mexican border, front man Joey Burns previously toured as a bassist with drummer John Convertino in folk-rock outfit Giant Sand before the pair relocated to Arizona to play as Friends of Dean Martinez. This later evolved into Calexico via a rotating cast of local musicians to complete early albums 'Spoke' and 'The Black Light'. Burns and Convertino also worked as session players and became a renowned rhythm section, before developing into a bigger, more wide-ranging band on 'Feast of Wire' in 2003, which stood out for its unique mix of country, songwriter soul and Latin, mariachi sounds. Dubbed as desert noir because of their loose and dreamy approach and connection to the landscape, cultural issues and dark spirit of the Southern border, they went on to work with Iron & Wine's Sam Beam and Doug McCombs from Tortoise on 'Carried to Dust' in 2008 and with Neko Case, Band of Horses' front man Ben Bridwell and Mexican songwriter Carla Morrison on 'Edge of the Sun' in 2015. They have also collaborated with Arcade Fire and recorded a version of Bob Dylan's 'Goin' to Acapulco' with My Morning Jacket's Jim James for the biopic movie 'I'm Not There', before returning with their ninth studio album 'The Thread That Keeps Us' in 2018, a passionate storytelling album dedicated to immigrant experiences and the pains of displacement.

Please enable Javascript to view this page competely.