Hot Rail
The record where horns and violin joined the duo and the band's sound arrived.
Calexico, 2000
- Released
- May 2000
- Label
- Quarterstick (US), City Slang (Europe)
- Producer
- Joey Burns and John Convertino
Hot Rail was produced by Burns and Convertino and recorded by Craig Schumacher and Nick Luca, with John Golden mastering. It added horns and violin to the Calexico sound: the opening El Picador brings in the mariachi trumpets of Martin Wenk and Ruben Moreno, and Madeleine Sosin plays violin on six tracks. Marianne Dissard sings on Ballad of Cable Hogue, and Rob Mazurek plays cornet on Fade. The European edition adds Crystal Frontier between Fade and Untitled III. A limited deluxe edition followed on 15 November 2010.
Pitchfork gave it 7.9. Looking back in 2011, PopMatters described it as the record where the Calexico sound announced itself with a flourish, and wrote that songs such as Sonic Wind and Drenched made the band sound mythic, not merely dusty.
Track listing
- El Picador3:14
- Ballad of Cable Hogue3:28
- Ritual Road Map1:14
- Fade7:45
- Untitled III4:07
- Sonic Wind4:13
- Muleta3:33
- Mid-Town3:33
- Service and Repair4:02
- Untitled II2:36
- Drenched4:50
- 16 Track Scratch1:28
- Tres Avisos5:11
- Hot Rail3:58
Personnel
- Joey Burns bass, guitar, cello, voice, loops, accordion, organ
- John Convertino drums, vibes, marimba, organ, percussion, accordion
- Marianne Dissard voice on Ballad of Cable Hogue
- Tim Gallagher pedal steel on Service and Repair
- Nick Luca guitar; recording engineer
- Rob Mazurek cornet on Fade
- Ruben Moreno trumpet
- Craig Schumacher harmonica on Drenched, MCI 16 track on 16 Track Scratch, field recording on Hot Rail; recording engineer
- Madeleine Sosin violin
- Martin Wenk trumpet
More from Calexico
Spoke (1996), The Black Light (1998), Feast of Wire (2003), Convict Pool (2004), In the Reins (2005), Garden Ruin (2006), Carried to Dust (2008), Algiers (2012), Edge of the Sun (2015), The Thread That Keeps Us (2018), Years to Burn (2019), Seasonal Shift (2020), El Mirador (2022)
Sources
- Hot Rail, Wikipedia
- Calexico: Hot Rail (master), Discogs
- Calexico: Hot Rail (City Slang LP), Discogs
- Calexico: Hot Rail / Feast of Wire, PopMatters (2011-04-14)
- Calexico (band), Wikipedia