Calexico

About

Also known as: Calexico vs. Buscemi, Calexio

Calexico built their sound right on the border, literally and musically. The Tucson duo of Joey Burns and John Convertino weave mariachi, cumbia, and tejano textures into a backbone of country, jazz, and post rock, earning the tag "desert noir" along the way. Their 2003 album Feast of Wire is widely seen as their breakthrough, and their 2005 EP In the Reins with Iron & Wine cracked the Billboard 200. The scope of their collaborations is genuinely impressive: Neko Case, Sam Beam, Ben Bridwell of Band of Horses, and Gaby Moreno all turned up on Edge of the Sun, while one of their songs served as the wake up track on the final Space Shuttle Endeavour mission. Their 2018 record The Thread That Keeps Us was tracked at a Northern California home studio they nicknamed The Phantom Ship, pulling in musicians from around the world to chase what Burns called a little more chaos in the sound.