Calexico New Album News: Carried to Dust due September 9th

Joey and John visited the KXCI studios on Friday, May 23rd to perform songs, talk about their new album and to promote the benefit show they played Friday night at the Rialto in Tucson to send Mariachi Aztlan de Pueblo High School to Washington DC for the National Independence Day Parade.

During Friday’s Home Stretch show hosted by Kristi Lloyd which I heard thanks to a fan on the Calexico Yahoo group who snagged the Internet feed of that show it was announced that the new album is finished and will be called Carried to Dust and will be released September 9th in the U.S.

Calexico played three songs (I think) but I only heard two of them. The first song was new and they didn’t announce a title for it, but it was a slower song with a road or driving theme, and they played another new waltzy song titled “The News About William” played on acoustic guitar and brushes on drums. No earth-shattering change in direction in my opinion, but more strong music in the familiar Calexico vein.

The tour dates are filling in for Calexico this summer and it looks like they might be holding most of the U.S. dates until after the album release. There are three dates, though, Detroit on 7/5, The Newport Folk Festival in Newport, RI, and the World Music Festival in Chicago on 9/25. The World Music Festival will be a free one, so I might consider making a long weekend in Chicago for that one.

Calexico In The Studio for a September Album Release

From the Yahoo Group Casadecalexico, on March 8th it was reported by band archivist Jim Blackwood that Calexico have been in the studio working on the new album. On March 23rd it was reported on the board that Calexico’s European Booking Agency said that the release date for the new album in Europe– I suppose on City Slang— would be September 8, 2008.

Drowned in Sound reports that Calexico is set to headline the UK End of the Road Festival which takes place September 12th through the 14th and would be right on the heels of the album release.

As expected, discussions of a new Calexico brought the Garden Ruin dissenters to the fore. Some hope that Calexico’s next album will be less “rock” than Garden Ruin. I love all of the Calexico albums, but Garden Ruin is what brought them to my attention, so I don’t mind if the new release sounds a bit like it.

Click Here to visit Touch and Go’s Calexico where you can stream songs under “Featured Clips”.
Click Here for Rare Calexico on iTunes iMix icon

Bo Ramsey’s Fragile Released Ahead of Schedule

Bo Ramsey - FragilePreviously we announced that Bo Ramsey’s album recorded in 2007 would be released on April 8th in conjunction with some CD release shows. Since tomorrow is April 1st, I was getting ready to send an e-mail over to CDBaby to see if they were going to be ready to have the CD available for the 8th. I hit Bo’s site and imagine my surprise that the CD is available today!

For whatever reason, you can’t find the new Bo Ramsey album by doing a search of “Bo Ramsey” on the CDBaby site. But, this link works and I ordered my copy this morning! $14 plus $2.25 shipping.

Bo has two more shows on the calendar that are solo and solo with band. 4/5/08 in Minneapolis at the Cedar Cultural Center with Marty Christensen and The Englert in Iowa City on 4/26 with band. I hope we’ll get more opportunities to see Bo this summer.

Look for a review here in the near future. I have had the opportunity to hear this album in advance and my first thoughts are that this album is the logical progression from his blues cover album Stranger Blues and his best and most consistently timeless album yet.