Dean Owens teams up with legendary Tex-Mex act Calexico for a series of releases, planned for the forthcoming months.

The first of these is a single, ‘New Mexico’ – taken from ‘The Desert Trilogy EPs’, to be followed by an album .

The full ‘Sinner’s Shrine’ album is currently COVID-postponed till later in 2021, leading to Owens continuing to record with the Calexico family of musicians long distance, these sessions providing material for an ‘introductory’ series of EPs in ‘The Desert Trilogy’.

The collaboration came about following a chance meeting while Owens was on tour in the USA, leading to an invitation to record with the band.

Donald Shaw – director of Celtic Connections – described the collaboration as “spellbinding… a “hands across the water” meeting of great songs and minds” – with the acts teaming up for a virtual show at this year’s festival.

The single features Owens on vocals alongside Calexico members Joey Burns on guitar with John Convertino providing drumming and percussion.

Jacob Valenzuela also appears on trumpet, on the album’s recordings, made at WaveLab Studios, in Tucson, Arizona with engineer Craig Schumacher.

Of the single, Joey Burns said: “As soon as I heard Dean play his song ‘New Mexico’, it stood out… When I close my eyes and hear this rendition I can feel the wind blowing down a lonely stretch of Highway 25 towards Las Cruces. Well worth keeping a copy in the glovebox of your car”.

John Convertino added: “When Dean started playing this song, I had all these images of ‘New Mexico’ in my head as I was playing, and we nailed it in one or two takes… A very special moment for sure”

“I always thought this song deserved the full technicolour treatment… and now it has,” Owens said of the track which originally appeared on his own debut solo release ‘The Droma Tapes’, from 2001.

The single is available to download via Bandcamp, and is taken from ‘The Burning Heart’ (The Desert Trilogy EPs Vol 1).
Volumes 2 and 3 are due for release on May 7th and July 9th respectively, the series the subject of a Crowdfunder campaign.

The single’s video has footage from the recording session with Dean, Joey Burns and John Convertino at WaveLab Studios, Tucson AZ.