The Spacious Moody Sounds of Calexico

As members of the alt-country rock group, Giant Sand, bassist Joey Burns and drummer John Convertino know a few things about capturing a song's rhythm and groove. Their experience in Giant Sand has laid most of the twisted groundwork for their current musical adventures in the group Calexico.

Burns first met Convertino in 1990, during Giant Sand's brief residency in Los Angeles. Convertino had been with the group since 1988; Burns joined in 1991. After years of developing their seemingly psychic creative synergy, the two formed Calexico in 1996 as a side project in their time away from Giant Sand.

"As a rhythm section, we have an unspoken connection -- almost telepathic in a sense," said Burns. "We let each other know what direction or what may lie ahead musically, which is due in part to our time playing together for so long.

"We usually tend to build up songs from rhythm because we are, by nature, the rhythm of the songs. So we build up from the two of us like a pingpong game, and some songs we keep as instrumental because we might want to keep it abstract -- or we might add vocals. But we always try to mix it up."

Burns, 34, has been playing music his entire life. Convertino, 38, first started playing drums at an early age with his family, whose band toured all over the continental U.S. and Alaska. Nowadays, both Burns and Convertino reside in Tucson, Ariz.

Calexico combines Afro-Cuban rhythms with Portuguese fado, mariachi, jazz, rock and country. Their fans have dubbed this style "Desert Noir." Critics have also suggested a number of labels to describe Calexico such as "lo-fi Tex-Mex," "lonesome highway twang" and "mariachi garage." Whatever it's called, the band produces exquisite moments of multicultural music, enhanced by symphonic overtones and eccentric time signatures.

"I would describe our sound as spacious, moody, sometimes bright and spontaneous," said Burns. "I think we play into a setting where Tucson serves as a backdrop, but we also travel a lot and we collect inspirations along the way in airports, on roads, highways, and in other cities and countries. I think it is a natural thing to change and venture out beyond the limits of where you have been."

Calexico has achieved critical acclaim both in America and Europe. But you'll only catch Burns reading reviews written across the Atlantic.

"All the reviews about us in the U.S. are the same," he explained. "I think the type of wording and descriptions are influenced by the differences in the government and education systems in America as opposed to Europe. I think, with any job, people get burned out writing. These writers either write about the music in a poetic way or they talk about the music in terms of notes and music theory."

Burns' style, on the other hand, is anything but burned out and predictable with such influences as Thelonious Monk, Eric Dolphy, Latin Playboys, Vic Chesnutt, David Byrne, Eric Satie and Hank Williams Sr.

"A lot of what you are (listening to) at that time influences you when you pick your instrument and start playing intuitively," he said.

One case in point is 2001's "Even My Sure Things Fall Through" album, which enlists the talents of Marianne Dissard on vocals, Martin Wenk and Jacob Valenzuela on trumpet, Nick Luca on organ and several members of the Tucson-based Mariachi Luz de Luna. The record also brings some elements of electronica to their desert sound, with a number of remixes by the British duo Two Lone Swordsmen.

"We attempt to understand the approach to dynamics, form, color and orchestration. When I play a certain beat, John will know all the different possibilities that may arise from my playing, and vice versa. In knowing each other, we know what to expect and we have the confidence to take liberties to try something new," added Burns.

Both Burns and Convertino claim musical interests beyond their work in Calexico and Giant Sand. They have both lent their eclectic roots music to the work of top names like Barbara Manning, Richard Buckner, Victoria Williams and Lisa Germano.

"I like researching music labels and learning about record companies. I also like to read, cook, travel and hang with the family," Burns said.

For all its noteworthy contributions to music, Calexico isn't exactly the type of group you'll find splattered all over mainstream media outlets like VH1, MTV or Spin. Burns attributes the band's relative obscurity to a conglomeration of record labels and their control over what most people are listening to these days: artists who seem to fit nicely into genres accessible to the public. Some artists could easily find reasons to complain about the independent music community, but Burns contends the atmosphere is promising, enabling musicians to maintain a kind of purity and anonymity in contrast with what he considers to be an exploiting mainstream music world.

"I think that a lot of artists go through a filter where these pop stars look flawless, which says something to kids," he says. " It takes a lot of work and effort in putting your time into discovering what lies beneath -- which is nice in a way, because in this community people share music interests."