The songs “Trigger” and “Frontera” first appeared on Calexico’s 1998 album, The Black Light, when the duo were still as minimalist as they were minimal. The former is a tense story-song whose impact derives from its restraint; Joey Burns delivers the tale of tragedy in a conspiratorial whisper, as though passing along gossip at a highway cantina, and John Convertino-- even then one of the most inventive drummers around-- punctuates the violence with hard hits of his splash cymbal. “Frontera”, by contrast, sounds like the opening credits for some forgotten spaghetti western, with a shuffling beat, a barbed-wire tangle of guitar, and horns that announce the director of photography with appropriate grandeur. The scope on both songs is small, personal, and intimate, with ambitions that transcend the low budget.
In the 15 years since the release of The Black Light, those two songs have evolved dramatically from their original arrangements, gradually merging into one song that pops up from time to time on Calexico’s setlist. “Frontera/Trigger” is the opener and highlight of the band’s new live album, Spiritoso, and the differences between this version and the song’s previous incarnations underscore just how far Burns and Convertino have come in a decade, not to mention all that has been lost and gained along the way. Featuring the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the song rumbles with thundering tympani, baroque strings, great blasts of brass, and what sounds like a klezmer band being heaved into Monument Valley. Together, the two songs become a widescreen, Technicolor epic of John Ford proportions, announcing that Calexico’s original ambitions have finally been matched with the means to realize them.
Originally a Record Store Day exclusive, Spiritoso documents a series of shows Calexico performed in Germany with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg. Much like last year’s vinyl box set Road Atlas, this live album has a casual retrospective feel, culling songs from throughout the band’s career but with no real attempt to be definitive. And much like the separate tour-only albums that comprised Road Atlas, it will most likely sound better as a complement to other live albums-- like 2009’s Live in Nuremberg or the upcoming Ancienne Belgique Vol. 2-- than it does as a stand-alone release.
Given the increasing scale of Calexico’s records, which have outgrown the minimalism of their first releases, an orchestral live album seems inevitable in retrospect. Once considered a sign of a rock artist’s delusional self-regard, this kind of collaboration no longer carries the stigma it might have in the past. To their credit, Calexico aren’t interested in using these orchestras to prove the importance of their own music. Rather than reinvent the songs, they accentuate and amplify the non-rock aspects that Calexico have long ago mastered: the soundtrack flourishes, the mariachi horn riffs, the jazzbo rhythms. “The News About William” bounces on its spry woodwind triplets, which mimic the rhythms of Convertino’s drums. “Black Heart” swells and fades ominously, like John Barry conveying intrigue and foreboding. It sounds like the greatest James Bond theme never used.
In other words, very little on Spiritoso sounds too far removed from its original incarnation, and nothing is nearly as transformative as “Frontera/Trigger”, which is the only song that truly shows off the possibilities of Calexico + orchestra. “Minas de Cobre”, another Black Light tune, is revved up and tricked out but maintains its original shape, while “Crystal Frontier” opens with a slow epilogue-- Burns setting the stage for his tale of the ancient among the modern-- before launching into its familiar fast tempo. Despite the strong performances and some inspired choices in arrangement, the album has the pall of a missed opportunity: not bad at all, but certainly not the major statement it could have been.
