Ode to the Southwest
Every story of landscape needs a soundtrack, whether it’s filling a cinema with atmosphere, or just in the mind of the writer. Music that carries a sense of place, that evokes space and emotion, beauty or harshness. Think Ennio Morricone, Dirty Three, Ry Cooder, Calexico, Sigur Rós, and The Triffids.
Naïm Amor and John Convertino’s new album, The Western Suite and Siesta Songs, is an inspiring panorama that pays homage to the southwestern desert. Naïm is French, originating from Paris, but has lived in Tucson, Arizona, for twenty years. He has recorded solo albums and a collection of “Soundtracks”, and collaborates regularly. John has lived in many parts of the U.S. but currently resides in El Paso, Texas. Best known as the creative drummer and co-founder of Calexico, he is accomplished in many instruments, notably piano and accordion. The pair recently recorded the album together after years of wanting to collaborate.
I interviewed John and Naïm about the new record, its origins, influences and their general feelings since its Nov. 9 release.
Tell me about your new album, The Western Suite and Siesta Songs. Can you explain the title for me?
JC: Yes. When Naïm had sent me his songs he called them “a western suite” and as you know, a “siesta” is an afternoon nap. I felt like some of these songs had that dreamy daytime feeling to them. They were written in the day.
NA: I originally worked on a film, the portrait of a cowboy living in Arizona. I did a lot of music for it and soon realized that I had to make an album out of it . I visioned it as a sort of tribute to the beautiful southwest. I was thinking of some sort of “symphony”. Ferde Grofé composed a piece in 1930 called the Grand Canyon Suite. That inspired me to call the album The Western Suite. Later, collaborating with John on the project, he added the Siesta Songs title.
Describe the record, the feel, themes, what you’re trying to get across.
NA: This is, for me, a tribute to the region I have been living in for twenty years. It was an opportunity to compose something reminiscent of the music from that area. But it was also a chance to transcend the “genre”, twist the clichés, take a little European distance maybe.
JC: I think the theme is based in the southwestern desert, the delicacy of it, the extremes, and our love for it. It was really good for me to live those two years in Ohio, made me appreciate again the space and beauty of the desert, made me long for it and I think you can feel it in these songs. I love instrumental records, sometimes it’s so nice to not have the poetry direct your thoughts, allow the music to take your thoughts, or have no thoughts at all, just feel.
What instruments did you each play?
NA: I played all the guitars, strings, lapsteel, voices, and whistles. Thøger Lund (Giant Sand) played upright bass and electric bass.
JC: I played the piano, drums, glockenspiel, vibraphone, marimba, and accordion.
Where was it recorded?
JC: My songs were recorded in my house when we were living in Ohio. It was a beautiful neighborhood, no fences, so deer would walk across our lawn. Our living room was so big we didn’t have furniture for it, so I filled it up with my instruments. It sounded very good in that room. Naïm recorded his songs in a small studio space he has in Tucson, and that’s where he added his parts to my songs and where I added my drumming to his.
How long did it take to record and mix?
NA: From the moment John started to work on the project, it took, I think, about six months.
JC: I had four days alone in my house, that is when I recorded my songs to a four-track cassette recorder. I think we both were sitting on these songs for quite a while, a few years even, because I had presented my ideas to Joey (Burns) for any possible use for the next Calexico record, which turned out to be Edge of the Sun. One of the bonus tracks “Roll Tango” was inspired by “Jelly Roll Tango”. So it wasn’t until we had finished Edge and most of its subsequent touring before we got to finishing the Suite. Naïm mixed it.
So how do you know each other?
JC: I met Naïm in Tucson when an old friend of mine from France married him.
NA: We met through Marianne Dissard, who was a film-maker in the ’90s and now is a singer. She lived in Tucson and made a documentary film on Giant Sand [Drunken Bees (1996)]. I met John and Joey as they came over to the studio and added some tracks to the album I was working on with my band at the time, Amor Belhom Duo. We soon after worked on a collaborative album called Tête à Tête under the acronym ABBC (Amor, Belhom, Burns, Convertino).
How did you come to work together on this collaboration?
NA: I sent some tracks to John to ask him what he thought about them, just to have an opinion, some perspective. He replied and said that all this needed was drums and he would record them. Then he called me up and told me that he had a project in progress that would maybe work with the songs I sent him. I worked, arranged his songs in a sensitive way to create an “answer” to my collection of tunes. It was really fun, the boundaries of the project immediately created a space of freedom and exploration.
JC: I have known Naïm for over 20 years, so there is a lot of trust there. I think we just believed in each other that whatever we did to each others’ songs would be right. We allowed it to happen. I know for certain when I listened to his songs that my drumming would add a lot. His previous solo record is called Hear the Walls. I love that record and the philosophy behind it. I knew that we had a lot in common after I heard that.
Have you collaborated before?
JC: Yes. Joey and I worked with Naïm, and a drummer Thomas Belhom. Naïm and Thomas had a duo and have since reunited and are on tour as I write this, opening for Tindersticks in Europe. We collaborated on a record called Tête à Tête under the name ABBC. It’s quite a sweet little effort. Naïm also recorded on Calexico’s Feast of Wire on a song called “Proskovia”.
Where did the inspiration come from for the album?
JC: I think when you have the time and space to work on something totally your own, you start to draw upon all those influences in your life. For me at that time, I was thinking of moving back to the desert in the middle of the coldest winter in Ohio, being completely alone in a big house with snow falling all around and a deer family hanging out in my front yard. I always think of my parents when I sit down to write. Their love of classical music, jazz and show tunes. I think of Italy, and the journey my grandparents took to get to the new world, my other grandparents who lived on a farm in dust-bowl Oklahoma. I think of all my favorite drummers, their tone, piano players, their melodies. I sit down and know that I can’t come close to their brilliance, but I can be inspired.
What’s the general feel in and around your places of work, with the recent U.S. Presidential election result?
JC: There is an immense amount of fear, sadness and anger. Many tears, believe me. So many people heartbroken that all the progress we made in the last eight years, a lot of it will be taken back. One can only hope that we have made two steps forward, and with this election it will only be one step back.
NA: This is a sad period here… as a European and being 47 years old, I’m from a generation that still had direct contact with grandparents, neighbors, who experienced the occupation, the war, the deportation. My generation grew up under the motto “Never again”. The memory of any kind of fascism is still connected to some reality. It feels today that the memory is hollowed out by empty words and concepts, and what I think is the worst, the devastating state of distraction. This state of distraction was the “topic” of my previous album Hear The Walls.
With your culturally inclusive repertoires, how (if at all) might this affect your writing and performing lives? Must’ve been close in Arizona.
JC: A lot of us thought Arizona might go blue, and even looked like Texas could have as well. It just turns out that a lot of Americans are not yet ready for all that progress. On a darker and more sinister note, a lot of Americans just don’t know how good they have it, so they threw it all away in a careless vote, or even worse, no vote at all.
The Western Suite and Siesta Songs is out now on CD, Vinyl and download (LM Duplication 2016).