A few weeks after their 13th album release (which came as their gift for my 51st birthday) I attended the Calexico concert for the third time, this time in Vienna.
This album, El Mirador, was recorded in their keyboard player Sergio Mendoza's home studio, and for me this is a very competent recording, and a logical development of their previous releases. Not all songs on this album sound the same, but the recording generally brings a good picture of musicians' work. It is tonally mostly correct, with some songs being very phase coherent at that. As such, I strongly recommend it.
This concert in Vienna's Museumsquartier was a part of their forthcoming tour. As I watched them for the third time now - for the first time in Belgrade in 2013, and then in Zagreb in 2016 - I can also say that their live performance is still great. I am not sure if this one was better than that in 2016, as back then they were greatly backed up by Gaby Moreno, and Zagreb's Tvornica was a bit better acoustically, but their performances are undoubtedly evolving, and are still a great experience.
The video moment taken for this post is a part of the latest album title song. Although it has practically the same tempo as a studio recording, the live performance is interesting for its slower rhythm. Artists normally don't alter their most recent releases in live performances, so this was somewhat unusual, and also quite ambitious, but more than successful, in my view.
And when I said artists, one of my favorite Calexico members, their great long time guitarist Jairo Zavala, who appeared only to record vocals on one track of the latest album, was not on stage with them this time, but Brian Lopez (Giant Sand, XIXA) was a more than appropriate replacement.
In the end, to make this concert complete, my better half took the chance to buy me an El Mirador T-shirt, so now I happily, as a real Calexico fan, walk around with it.
https://youtu.be/LTj8qGQ4V6U
A few weeks after their 13th album release (which came as their gift for my 51st birthday) I attended the Calexico concert for the third time, this time in Vienna.
This album, El Mirador, was recorded in their keyboard player Sergio Mendoza's home studio, and for me this is a very competent recording, and a logical development of their previous releases. Not all songs on this album sound the same, but the recording generally brings a good picture of musicians' work. It is tonally mostly correct, with some songs being very phase coherent at that. As such, I strongly recommend it.
This concert in Vienna's Museumsquartier was a part of their forthcoming tour. As I watched them for the third time now - for the first time in Belgrade in 2013, and then in Zagreb in 2016 - I can also say that their live performance is still great. I am not sure if this one was better than that in 2016, as back then they were greatly backed up by Gaby Moreno, and Zagreb's Tvornica was a bit better acoustically, but their performances are undoubtedly evolving, and are still a great experience.
The video moment taken for this post is a part of the latest album title song. Although it has practically the same tempo as a studio recording, the live performance is interesting for its slower rhythm. Artists normally don't alter their most recent releases in live performances, so this was somewhat unusual, and also quite ambitious, but more than successful, in my view.
And when I said artists, one of my favorite Calexico members, their great long time guitarist Jairo Zavala, who appeared only to record vocals on one track of the latest album, was not on stage with them this time, but Brian Lopez (Giant Sand, XIXA) was a more than appropriate replacement.
In the end, to make this concert complete, my better half took the chance to buy me an El Mirador T-shirt, so now I happily, as a real Calexico fan, walk around with it.
