Hmm. When it started I liked it. A didgeridoo and a deep stubby rhythm track that was setting off somewhere just a little crazy. Like a lizard with a throat sac of adrenalin. A big stage guitar line worried me a bit though. TV show score, I wondered?
Well. there are 22 more tracks to go. So settle down, get out the papers and drink some coffee. Breathe the desert air and let it blow over me. Spider Taylor, guitars and gubbins; Michael Ely, many other gubbins: I am in your hands.
I'm sorry dear reader. I'm sorry Michael and Spider. It doesn’t work for me. With none of the tracks exceeding five minutes, and many dipping below three, it's a collection of short-cut instrumental soundscapes that end up as too much caffeine to take. Just as I'm drifting somewhere Ozric Tentacles-ish, there's another New Age synth line or another shift in the percussive business that snaps me back to attention. And there are 22 big three second gaps to fall awake in. Count 'em.
Do deserts have mosquitoes? "When the Devil Was a Little Boy" is about something like that. Sounds like it anyway. Neeahhh, neeeahhh goes a kazoo-like noise … with a sampled string section and some chunked up piano chords thrown in amongst the helicopter noises and a whistle-blowing disco beat (without the whistles thank God). It embodies my response to the album. I want to live with the desert world in general, yeh, course I do – but in this one particular case, I want to give it a good slap.
With "Rock Gardens, Swimming Pools and Barbecues" I'm ready for the bus home. It has a reggae beat, a kids'-TV xylophone tune and an Algerian kind of horn sound – ending on the biggest bluebottle noise you ever heard. I'm not joking.
Plenty of on-line reviews praise the experimental, hook laden, evocative sounds. I'm not going to gainsay any of them – their beats and tunes are very proficient and there are plenty of creative moments. But I still feel queasy after half an hour and haven’t once managed to stay the full 70 plus minutes. CALEXICO is more my desert soundtrack, lazy hack that I am. I'm reminded here of a student bedroom wall, covered in posters of sunsets, sea shores, cactus sunsets and cool mountain peaks – all in vivid glowing COLOUR. Maybe some are cut out of National Geographic? I get a headache. I'm not sure if drugs would help much either– too much chopping and changing and too many precise disturbances. Drums and cymbals on "Monsoon" sound like expensively recorded drums and cymbals – not a gathering rainstorm at all.
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"The Perfume of Creosote" (track 12) is a little more rustic. Light touches of percussion and crystal droplet synth sounds. Then a long string line and some extra colours shimmering away as a Mike Oldfield sort of guitar moves in. But where’s the creosote? Have these guys ever worked with creosote? It stinks and it burns your skin. It makes your eyes water. You put in on sheds and fences to keep the rain out. It takes weeks to get it out of your hair and your clothes. Maybe it helps to keep the snakes out of your back kitchen if you paint it over the threshold? Maybe I'll try it to keep the Kleeneze man away.
So. We seem to have 23 soundtracks for Pearl and Dean dry roasted peanut commercials – each one an awesomely professional, emotionally drenched burst of inventive sound. But however spectacular each one turns out to be, we’re left at the end of the show with a prodigious list of ingredients on a dry wrapper and a hell of a thirst for something simple, moist and wholesome. Check the website for more optimistic second third and fourth opinions: www.auralfixationrecords.com
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