Calexico isn't simply an indie, country, or rock 'n' roll band, and yet the Arizona duo is all of those things and more. Calexico also speaks multiple languages — lyrically, musically, culturally, and otherwise. And the group is as comfortable performing any number of regional Mexican musical styles as it is with American ones.
That's because Calexico's longtime members — multi-instrumentalists Joey Burns and John Convertino — exist in a mindspace that treats the border between the United States and Mexico as an artificially fixed line, ready to be bent, crossed, or even erased. The band's name is symbolic, borrowed from a California border town that mirrors the city of Mexicali in Mexico, never fully one or the other.
It's perhaps little surprise, then, that Calexico's latest album, Edge of the Sun, is a cross-border effort, with pieces recorded on both sides of the line. "Some songs came from a demo session we did down in Mexico City, others from ideas we had come up with in our rehearsal studio and at Wavelab in Tucson," Convertino says. Calexico's 2012 album Algiers, by contrast, had a more insular feel, Convertino adds. "We were living at the studio, so we fell into a pretty steady routine."
Edge of the Sun came to Calexico more like the band's 2003 breakout, Feast of Wire, Convertino explains, "in that the record coalesced over time. We had a lot of songs to choose from, so we needed some time to bring it all together. We really like to try new things, and not repeat ourselves, but then there are certain core aesthetics we like to stick to as well. I think somewhere in that mix there are discoveries that present challenges that help us grow as musicians and people."
Calexico brings its sonic culture clashing to the Fillmore Wednesday, July 8, showcasing the band's deft approach at everything from steel-guitar twang to minimal rock growl to lively horn arrangements and squirrelly keyboard lines. The band's reach on Edge of the Sun extends beyond the U.S. and Mexico in places; for instance, the late-night ruminative feel of "Tapping on the Line," which features Burns and Canadian powerhouse Neko Case's vocals intertwining beautifully, leads into the darkly exuberant "Cumbia Donde," whose cumbia rhythms form the basis of another striking duet, courtesy of Spanish singer Amparo Sánchez.
"Most of the guest vocalists had the songs in their own home studios to add what they felt they could add," Convertino notes, "so we were very surprised by what we would hear back. That was a real treat about this record. There is no one thing that makes the art. Being comfortable does not always get the best results. Some songs come easy and the basics come together in one take, others take a lot of takes to get right, more like rehearsing them. Then there are all the overdubs and edits that change the songs dramatically, and of course how they are mixed is a whole other process that welcomes changes."
The guests — in addition to Case and Sánchez, there's also Iron and Wine's Sam Beam, DeVotchKa's Nick Urata, Mexican musician Carla Morrison, Guatemalan singer-songwriter Gaby Moreno, and others — give the album a constantly changing feeling, reflecting Calexico's own slow transformation over the past two decades into a veteran act that inspires others. Though Calexico formed in the mid-1990s, the Burns/Convertino partnership dates even further back to a previous group, the Friends of Dean Martinez, and their original meeting as part of Arizona legend Howe Gelb's long-running music collective Giant Sand.
"It's been great to have been around so long now that we have a whole other younger generation coming to the shows, and even playing in the band," Convertino says. "We obviously get older — no stopping that — so with time passing we have all these songs to choose from to play live. I'm happy to say that some have withstood the test of time, and continue to be fun to play and seem to still elicit emotional responses from audiences old and new."
The song "Miles from the Sea," a reflection on the weight of geological history and how seabeds can become mountains over endless years, has become Convertino's favorite to play on the current tour. "The melodies are so strong and there is this build in the bridge that, when we recorded it, I never thought would be so dynamic," he says. "The sound and feel make you play differently, but almost always you feel a connection to the instrument before you even pick it up."
When it comes to what's inspired Convertino the most this year, his answer moves well beyond music and yet still sums up what Calexico is all about at heart — the notion that there's always more than one language to learn:
"My ten-year-old son Holden has been inspiring me since the day he was born, but more lately than ever because we moved to El Paso a year ago and he has — through a lot of hard work — learned to speak Spanish in his bilingual school. It's amazing to see that transformation."