Borders are always interesting places for fusion and creativity. Cultures clash; community’s blend and wonderful new hybrids arise from the melting pot to take on a life of their own. South Texas is just such a place and if that is reflected in its music, there is no better mirror than Emilio Crixell and his musical gang.
The music does take a bit of unravelling, if you are the sort of person who likes to do such a thing, and I like nothing better than unpicking musical threads. It isn’t so much complex, more textured, with all the sounds that have found their way to this culturally diverse region finding a place to co-exist in the music. Mediterranean grooves carried through the Latin sounds of South America, African rhythms that evolved into soul and gospel; Mariachi spice, southern blues-rock and everything in between rub shoulders in one big musical celebration.
If you took the showboating and psychedelia out of Carlos Santana’s early albums, this would sit right in there along side them, in the same way linking the sultry and the sassy, the emotive and the energetic, the familiar and the forward thinking. And also like him this is music that represents the creative gene spicing which takes place in the ever shrinking, ever shifting modern world. Revolutions are fun for a while, but evolution is the way forward.
