You can call it neo-leftfield folk or country/stoner rock but Maquiladora are moving to the beat of a different drummer. This is the natural sound of the southwest corner of Alta California aglow in warm sunshine and awash in the cool blue pacific. This is the sound of the golden landscape, a buzz with honey bees, sea breezes, and the spirit of the natives and first Californios who came to love and live here. Maquiladora harness the mojo of this unique and still relatively culturally unknown and mostly misunderstood region. Let's say they play Western, desert-folk, country/rock of the mellowest and most gently mind expanding kind.
The trio record themselves in the attic studio of Phil's 1911 bungalow in downtown San Diego.
"The sun light shifted moods. the seasons passed. we sweat and froze in the attic of old Luisa crafting this record. It’s now our tenth year together in close quarters. We’ve seen many colors change, drifting together, then apart then together again. The southwest does that to you at desert, ocean and city speed. The orange city lights in the early summer call us to meet again. This record is focused and relaxed. We mixed it ourselves, had Joe Plummer play the drums, took our time with it, did other stuff, came back in a colder season and started up again. The songs are of middle and lower California amidst the blooming desert, the swirling ocean air, and the storied nights of most western cities. The place inside the place. As the moving darkness and moonshine fell on us through the skylights we did some work and talked about reference points. We grew older, over cigarettes, and our songs changed. It’s important to know that with three voices and songwriters we’ve been through a lot together and if you listen closely you can hear that. Like the familiarity you have with the sound of the leaves of the tree you live near, or the ocean sounds after 20 years of hearing, of being. We’ve put out a lot of music, but to stand and sing some of these new songs has been different. It is a different place now. A subtle shift of expression and voice. It’s been moving for us and we have some hope it may move you. And so, we’ve wrapped up our thoughts and called it “a house all on fire” a transformation away from yesterday …..let ‘it breathe… let ‘it breathe. --Maquiladora
"This is the direction Low should've gone." -- Jon DeRosa, Pale Horse and Rider/Aarktica
"These reclusive Californians do for country music what Radiohead did for Brit-pop: dismantle the machine and rebuild it with alien parts." --Andrew Paine Bradbury, Black Book
Track list: 1. Simply to See You, 2. Nightmares and Light, 3. Storyteller, 4. Careless Fearless, 5. Blackend and Damaged, 6. Summer of Sad Songs (for H.H.), 7. Long Lost Love, 8. Lo Escribe en la Alma, 9. Atop the Infinite, 10. White Sands, 11. Katella Avenue Blues.
