Tex-Mex Calexico's Dusty Border Music

When the Coen Brothers took their cameras to the epic, monolithic landscape of the far west Texas plains, bringing Cormac McCarthy's big novel, No Country for Old Men, to big screen, they rolled celluloid on the kind of mythical American milieu long captured, on compact-disc, by Tucson duo Calexico. The work of onetime Giant Sand-men Joey Burns and John Convertino, Calexico have, since forming in 1996, carved out a particular artistic niche: making grand, swelling, artistic orchestral music drenched in mariachi overtones.

On their freshly-minted sixth LP, Carried to Dust, Calexico craft a gentler record than some of the more boisterous, brassy discs that populated their early-oughts output. Though Calexico's currently on a two-month-long, two-continent-spanning, 13-country tour in support of their new disc, before Burns boarded a Berlin-bound jet plane, he took the time out to talk Tex-Mex culture and writerly inspiration in this impossibly exclusive promotional conversation.

In an unrelated event: he also took time out, recently, to record a rare solo set for some dubious corporate entity, who —as the audio of his session shows— seem a little confused as to who their Special Guest Star actually is.

Photo © [Stephanie Cousin]