Calexico and Iron & Wine / Adia Victoria

CALEXICO and IRON & WINE’s collaborative record Years to Burn—the follow-up to their 2005 EP In the Reins, which was “rich and evocative, the lyrics poignant and probing” (No Depression)—drops on June 14, and the buzz is deafening. The two bands become one here to play music from both records, as well as from each of their respective catalogues.

Sam Beam is a singer-songwriter who has been creating music as Iron & Wine for nearly two decades. Beginning with the almost-whispered beauty of And the Creek Drank the Cradle (Sub Pop, 2002), which he recorded and produced in his home studio, through the course of seven albums, numerous EPs and singles, and the initial volumes of an Archive Series, Iron & Wine has captured the emotion and imagination of listeners with distinctly cinematic songs.

Centered around the songwriting duo of Joey Burns and John Convertino, Calexico is a band nearly unmatched in its restless creativity. The pair’s prolific partnership has its origins in 1990 in L.A., when they met playing together in Giant Stand. A series of fruitful collaborations with the likes of Victoria Williams and Richard Buckner followed for the next few years before they released what would become the first Calexico record, in 1995 (when they were called Spoke), and they have never looked back. In the Reins is a highlight in a long career of exceptional albums and even better live shows.

ADIA VICTORIA is a Nashville-based singer-songwriter-guitarist who, with her haunting vocals and languid but intense presence, is “redefining what it means to be a Southern blueswoman; for her, that's a wily, radical and thoroughly contemporary role.” (NPR) She released her 2016 debut, Beyond the Bloodhounds, and her acclaimed 2019 follow up, Silences, on Atlantic Records.