CITY SLANG
Calexico’s second album saw the Arizona duo spread their wings and expand their sonic palette, embracing the multi-track possibilities of Tuscon’s WaveLab studio and new levels of instrumentation that Joey Burns refers to as “a thrift-store orchestra”. Widescreen Spaghetti Westerns and Mariachi brass are joined by shuffling Latin rhythms on evocative desert vignettes such as The Ride Pt II, and yearning lap-steel guitar on the sixminute Missing. Calexico’s sound is a singular one, forged by the unique landscapes of America’s South West: a tremulous violin part evokes the haunting sound of a freight-train horn piercing the desert night on the title track: “Out past the Border Patrol/ Whose Thunderbird’s no match”. Reissued to celebrate the album’s 20th anniversary, this 2LP 180g package includes 11 bonus tracks, six of them from 1999’s 98 – 99 Road Map. Of added interest to fans, three mixes of Minas De Cobre offer divergent twists on the original’s sombre Mariachi grandeur. With Trump threatening to build his wall, these cross-border dispatches have never sounded more apposite.