Matchmaking is dangerous business. Many of us have, at one time or another, tried to link those two friends who are “just perfect for one another,” and ended up with a huge explosion on our hands. Or worse, no fireworks at all.
Suppose, though, you are Howard Greynolds, owner of Overcoat Records, and you have friends who are as talented as the dusty Tucson-based band Calexico and Iron and Wine songwriter Sam Beam. You must look at matchmaking as a slightly less risky prospect. In The Reins, the seven-song EP for Overcoat that resulted when Greynolds encouraged the two bands to meet up, reads like a wedding invitation: this is what happens when like-minded souls merge brainpower, share a collective moment of romance and allow it to blossom into a deep and meaningful relationship.
The idea originated three years ago when Greynolds – who engineered a similar collaboration between Tortoise and Will Oldham – suggested that Calexico serve as the backing band for Iron and Wine’s 2002 debut, The Creek Drank the Cradle. When Calexico’s hectic touring schedule and Beam’s family obligations didn’t align, he entreated Beam to send a collection of unreleased demos to Calexico world headquarters in Arizona.
Calexico received the recordings, and bandleaders Joey Burns and drummer John Convertino set to tinkering. Originally, they planned to add to the demos, but in December of 2004, Beam traveled to Wavelab Studios in Tuscon and spent three days recording. Calexico pedal/lap steel player Paul Niehaus, trumpeters Martin Wenk and Jacob Valenzuela and upright bassist Volker Zander joined them in the studio, as well as Wavelab engineers Nick Luca and Craig Schumacher, and vocalist Natalie Wyants.
Despite the large number of players, the recording process moved easily. “Calexico’s done a lot of collaborations, so we’re always watching someone else steer the boat,” says Calexico frontman Joey Burns, from a hotel room in Ottawa, where the band is playing a blues festival. “But Sam was really easy to follow. He’s a good listener and he’s always right there with you.”
Beam admits that the process of building a song in the studio was foreign and exciting. His records, including 2004’s Our Endless Numbered Days, had been crafted without much tracking and mostly so that he wouldn’t forget the songs. “Recording at home or in the studio, you just come up with a version that works,” he says via cell phone. “I put most of the work in before the recording process. It was freeing to be able to just throw out an idea and have someone burst out with it.”
Though Burns denies that there was any deliberate attempt to blend each band’s regional influence, Calexico’s dusty southwestern sprawl merges seamlessly with Iron and Wine’s dense Southern delta blues and Appalachian folk dirges. Beam’s tight, finger-picked guitar lines slacken and expand, and Burns and Convertino use those tiny openings to wedge in serpentine guitar melodies and complex rhythms. Convertino punches through the haze by using banded brushes on his drums, and they bring a spiky urgency to what might otherwise be just layers of atmospherics. The songs congeal around beats and roll forward like a drunk, stumbling home through the desert.
“Sam wanted to make [the songs] as different as possible,” says Burns. “During the mixing stage, John and I were thinking of keeping some of the parts minimal, and Sam said, ‘No, let’s make it stand out from either one of our records.’”
Indeed, Reins is peppered with elements that might sound out-of-place on a solo record from either band. The sweeping title track sets the operatic vocals of Tucson mariachi singer Salvador Duran against Beam’s gentle whisper. (“Salvador’s our own Pavarotti,” Burns jokes.) Duran’s melodramatic burst serves as the comic foil, adding a vent for the song’s pent up emotion. On the elegant “History of Lovers,” Beam adds a pulsing blues guitar riff that tethers down Calexico’s chorus of trumpets and curls of steel guitar.
Both Burns and Beam insist that the relationship is just beginning. Calexico and Iron and Wine have a touring spectacle planned this fall to support the record. Both bands will play full sets, joining each other for a collaborative set at the end of the evening. They’ll be inviting regional guest stars, and, if all goes as planned, spoken word performers and other assorted artists. Beam is hoping to bring Duran, and to have him perform a set of his rhythmic mariachi music.
“The record is the iceberg,” Burns concludes, and Beam concurs. “We all decided it would be fun to create a party atmosphere,” he adds. “This means the songs have the capacity to change.”
