Import only EP! The album version of the title track, lifted from their 2003 album, 'Feast of Wire' is backed with six non-LP tracks, 'Black Heart' (Jazzanova White Soul Dub), 'Attack El Robot! Attack!' (...And How He Lost RMX by Wechsel Garland), 'Quattro' (Gotan Project Remix), 'Guero Canelo' (Nortec Mix by Panoptica), 'Pepita' (ISO68 Remix), & an 11-minute video of the band performing 'Black Heart' live at the Barbican in London. Labels.
The title track of the six-track Black Heart EP is absolutely prime Calexico. Lifted from the band's superb 2003 album Feast of Wire, "Black Heart" is a gothic country ballad draped in melodramatic strings and carried by a vocal performance of splendid hopelessness, something like a condemned man dictating his farewells. There are echoes here of the Bad Seeds, Tindersticks and Thin White Rope; indeed, those fine groups should feel flattered by the comparison. The quality control on this EP wavers after that, though it isn't entirely Calexico's fault that the remaining five tracks are remixes of Calexico songs. Jazzanova's epic reworking of "Black Heart" itself is brilliant, using the length to heighten the song's tension, and Gotan Project's "Quattro" finds a surprisingly workable balance between Calexico's flamenco-tinted country and trip-hop. Unfortunately, Wechsel Garland's take on "Attack El Robot! Attack!", while not unpleasant, is insubstantial and Panoptica's "Guero Canelo" and iso68's "Pepita" alternate between the aimless and annoying. --Andrew Muelle
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