Richmond Fontaine have announed the release of their eighth album We Used to Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River. The album is to be released on Décor Records (American Music Club, Franz Nicolay) and will be followed by a full UK tour in September. Willy Vlautin will also be over playing a set at the Latitude Festival on July 19th.

Since the bands last album Thirteen Cities (Feb 2007), Richmond Fontaine have been writing what they say is their strongest work yet with their most memorable tunes to date. The album is all written by singer/songwriter, Willy Vlautin who has already released two fiction novels to great acclaim in the past two years ‘The Motel Life’ and ‘Northline’ on Faber & Faber and his third novel ready for release in Feb 2010. The album will be preceded by the 7” single “You Can Move Back Here” out July 20th.

Willy’s rough guide to the tracklisting:

‘We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like a River’
Living next to an abandoned house that once had a grand swimming pool, the romance of a couple having their first place, and the romance and cost of living in a bad neighborhood.

‘Northwest‘
Instrumental feature Collin Oldham’s cellomobo

‘You Can Move Back Here‘
Getting a call from an old pal drowning in a city

‘The Boyfriends‘
A mom’s series of boyfriends and the kid who has to see them. Features trumpet by Mr. Paul Brainard.

‘The Pull‘
The anxiety and struggle of trying to stay sober. The man in it is so angry and hopeless that he begins boxing, and it works until he gets hurt then it’s taken away as well.

‘Sitting Outside my Dad’s Old House‘
Instrumental

‘Maybe We Were Both Born Blue‘
A high school romance and a neighbor who ruins both of them

‘Watch Out‘
Instrumental

’43‘
Debt, a paint store, and a basement full of weed.

‘Lonnie‘
Running into your friend’s aunt at Safeway and having her give you a list of all the horrible things her nephews has done.

‘Ruby and Lou‘
A romance and a couple believing there’s a place where the darkness of the world doesn’t exist. The Portland room they get is at the St. Francis Hotel. It’s where Drug Store Cowboy is set and is where I used to stay when I visited Portland.

‘Walking back to our Place at 3AM’
Instrumental

‘Two Alone’
In a new town with a job as forklift driver and a pregnant girlfriend who loves credit cards and doesn’t have a job.

‘A Letter To The Patron Saint of Nurses’
A nurse having a nervous breakdown while drinking wine coolers and listening to Mariachi music.

Catch Richmond Fontaine on tour throughout September including an appearence at The End Of The Road festival…

July
17th The Social London (Willy Valutin solo set)
19th Latitude Festival Suffolk (Willy Valutin solo set)

September
Fri 4th Ireland – Electric Picnic Festival
Sat 5th Pontypridd – Muni Arts Centre Festival
Sun 6th – Winchester – SXSC Festival
Mon 7th – Leicester – The Musician
Tues 8th – Newcastle – The Cluny
Wed 9th – Glasgow – Stereo
Thurs 10th – Leeds – The New Roscoe
Fri 11th – North York Moors – Band Room
Sat 12th – Bedford – Civic
Sun 13th – End of the Road Festival
Mon 14th – Bristol – St Bonaventures
Tues 15th – Nottingham – Maze
Wed 16th – Manchester -Academy 3
Thurs 17th – London – Garage

It wasn’t just tumbleweeds and lizards that were carried across the horizon with Garden Ruin‘s stop gap musical experiments. Calexico modernized and in the process loss some of its Tex-Mex charm in pursuit of indie-rock idioms.  Any good meteorologist or (urban) cowboy will tell you that loose soil erosion in one place means a deposit of it in another. Carried to Dust is that other place and the sand it carried is chock full of the choice minerals Calexico fans cherish.

Te resulting dust formula is not as interesting as older experiments. Dust is not the mysterious film noir Western that was 2003′s Feast of Wire was but its no slouch either.  With the exception of the moody indie-rock squalls heard on “Man Made Lake,” this new album leaves Garden Ruin behind on Route 66. Collaboration somewhat hindered  Joey Burns and John Convertino, the duo behind most of Calexico’s globe-trotting music, but here they draw heavily on their favorite sounds for this sixth outing. Sure, there’s plenty of interaction between the band members and their old cohort Sam Beam on the soft flamenco-dub of “House of Valparaiso.” Multi-instrumentalist Jacob Valenzuela steps up for the organ and south of the border horn line  of Spanish-language “Inspiración.” Elsewhere, Jairo Zavala, sidles up to Burn’s mic for the widescreen chorus of “Victor Jara’s Hands.”

Spaghetti Western dalliances (“The News About William”), Portuguese fado , mariachi shuffles (“Victor Jara’s Hands”), and the veteran group’s signature snare-and-bass interplay subside the musical dust storms of collaboration. Though Covertino has found his singer’s voice he shares the mic well. A pure country song ballad like “Slowness,” shines with folk chanteuse, Pieta Brown.

Calexico albums are usually not full of distinct narratives. They serve more as tone poems or travelogues for suffocating heat, the respite of oases, dusty ghost towns, and moribund landscapes. This time out there’s a phantom lyrical narrative that centers on the story of a Hollywood writer who hits the road after the strike. The jovial wordless chorus of “Writer’s Minor Holiday” portends a young man enjoying the freedom of the open road and some “Irish whiskey glasses” along the way. Calexico rarely relinquishes their purposely unspecific lyrical themes.

The album’s final section slinks into moonlighted musical themes that aren’t as interesting as tend to pale in comparison to the lure of that first third of nuggets. This is all culminates in the spooky closer “Contention City” – where an ambient curtain of electric piano and glockenspiel resonated alongside steel guitar. The song has the synergic touch of Tortoise’s Doug McCombs. For an album that escapes the collaboration within Calexico, Dust entrances the ear when it pulls away from the microscopic indie-rock meets the Southwest world that Calexico’s inhabited for so many years.

The small problem with this new release is that some songs are eerily reminiscent of Feast of Wire – namely “Victor Jara’s Hands” of “Quattro (World Drifts In)” and “Fractured Air” of “Dub Latina.” These similarities are mostly because the band have created a distinctive sound that they’ve finally chosen to capitalize on. Another musical dust storm may slough off much of what they’ve done on Dust but Calexico’s jazzy snare-and-bass heartbeat remains.
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“Two Silver Trees” – Calexico

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