Calexico - Carried To Dust

by Dan Worth

A Western soundtrack

"It’s the kind of album that when it reaches the end you won’t notice the silence afterwards because it’s meant to merely wash over you, rather than grab and hold your attention and demand you concentrate."

Dusty streets, a chiming bell, a grizzled gunslinger riding over the horizon to clean up a lawless town – the staples of any Western movie. Oh and a soundtrack that runs between melodious, romantic and slightly sinister. Which is pretty much what Calexico have covered on ‘Carried To Dust’. Which would make a good Western title.

This all makes sense, the band hail Tuscon Arizonia, and the name is taken from a border town in California called Calexico – a British Portishead in that respect then –and it has that wild, untamed Western sound throughout. Opening track ‘Victor Jara’s Hands’ is sung in Spanish and has lilting trumpets throughout while ‘El Gatillo (Trigger Revisited)’ is an instrumental piece of Spanish guitar lines, uplifting trumpets and pedal steel guitar that could perfectly soundtrack the celebration ending of our film after our hero has expelled the no-good desperados. This sound is broadly similar throughout, generally mid to down tempo, pedal steel on almost every track, and drums that are brushed rather than beaten.

However, this soundtrack view, good as it is at conjuring up thoughts on the Western genre does mean it’s hard to find any way into the music beyond this. It fits better in the background as something you can just ignore, in a good way. It’s the kind of album that when it reaches the end you won’t notice the silence afterwards because it’s meant to merely wash over you, rather than grab and hold your attention and demand you concentrate.

So if you like the idea of a mellow, laid back series of songs that conjure up border towns, gun fighters, and riding horses through dusty plains then this is definitely an album worth checking out.

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