Calexico Hear ‘Voices In The Field’

Calexico have shared a second track from their forthcoming ninth studio album, The Thread That Keeps Us, which is due out on Jan 26 via City Slang. New track, ‘Voices In The Field’ continues to find the group, led by vocalist/guitarist Joey Burns and drummer John Convertino, in fine fettle with an album that captures their stylistic variety and unpredictability, while still finding solace in limitless creativity. With less polish and more grit than ever before, ‘The Thread That Keeps Us ‘both honours enduring traditions and reveals Calexico’s supreme confidence in songwriting, ultimately setting a whole new standard for the band.

Burns explained the song, saying: "In the age of the extremes, when walls attempt stifling words, this song is inspired by the poems on postcards from those uprooted by war and oppression. It’s a song to remind us to open up our hearts and hear other voices sing their stories. I was listening to Mavis Staples, Bombino, Joe Strummer and Bob Dylan."

In bringing The Thread That Keeps Us to life, Joey Burns and John Convertino found a spiritual home in unusual surroundings—not in Arizona, but on the Northern California coast in a home-turned-studio called the Panoramic House. Built from debris and shipyard-salvaged timber—and dubbed “The Phantom Ship” by the band—the grandiose house and its edge-of-the-world-like ambience soon made their way into the songs. The specter of California also had a powerful effect: as both dream state and nightmare, its infinite duality is mirrored in the music, giving Calexico a new direction and new edge.

Working with their longtime engineer Craig Schumacher, Calexico co-produced The Thread That Keeps Us, gathering musicians from across the globe to dream up an earthy yet expansive sound spiked with jagged guitar tones and flashes of distortion. “There’s a little more chaos and noise in the mix than what we’ve done in the past,” Burns points out. Although that chaos has much to do with “where we’re at right now as a planet,” it also echoes Calexico’s dedication to constant experimentation. “Whenever we’re writing and we come up with something that feels too familiar, someone will end up saying, ‘That feels good, but let’s keep going and see what else we can uncover,’” Burns says. “It’s been really important to the arc of this band’s evolution for us to always keep on trying new things.”

The Thread That Keeps Us captures the anxieties and unease of living in tumultuous times. But while the album draws a kinetic energy from all that uncertainty, its lyrics unfold with a literary nuance and sense of setting and character. “Instead of writing straight-up protest songs, I want to tell stories,” Burns says. Largely inspired by his wanderings around Northern California during the album’s production, the narratives embedded in the record reflect on displacement, transitory existence, and—in Burns’s words—“returning to your home after being gone for some time and seeing how things have changed, and maybe not in the best way.”

Calexico 2018 UK live dates:

Mar 28 Bristol, UK @ Trinity Centre

Mar 29 London, UK @ O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire