For the first time, Calexico worked with producer, JD Foster. Foster had got to know the band on recordings they had done with Richard Buckner, Nancy Sinatra and Laura Cantrell, and had previously produced albums for Marc Ribot and Richmond Fontaine. “We liked the variety in his work,” Burns explains. “His choices for production have been focused on songs and are at the same time very adventurous in details – using unusual percussion, or wanting to bring in instruments like banjo ukeleles, bass melodica, electric mandolin, and tenor guitar.”

To start the process, they met for a week of rehearsals in Bisbee, a Victorian mining town in southeast Arizona, now a stronghold for left wing liberals, artists, writers, touring circus acts, and people who prefer the more creative lifestyle of a small town rather than the big modern cities of Tucson and Phoenix. “Plus,” Burns notes, “it's always 10 degrees cooler in Bisbee than in Tucson.”

“Our friend Bill Carter, a writer, film maker and photographer, he recommend we practise on an empty fourth floor flat above his friend's restaurant, Cafe Roka,” he continues. “It proved to be inspiring on many levels. Great food, everything within walking distance, down to earth people, and no working cell phones, since the old town is barricaded inside a deep ravine. Every day we’d walk through the narrow steep streets, like a smaller version of San Francisco, get some coffee, and head on up to Cafe Roka. It truly is an amazing place, perfect for making music or hanging out in thrift stores and haunted hotel saloons, both of which the town has a healthy supply.”

Lyrically, Garden Ruin sees Burns addressing contemporary America rather than the mythical Americas that were his source in the past.

“In the past there were songs that brought up social political issues like ‘Service and Repair’, ‘Sanchez’, ‘Sunken Waltz’ and ‘Across The Wire’, but never has an album been so concentrated on these themes as this album. I would say we are confronting these times of political extremism on songs like ‘All Systems Red’ and ‘Deep Down’,” Joey declares. “‘Letter to Bowie Knife’ talks about religious fundamentalism and ‘Cruel’ reflects on environmental corruption.”

“I think we are trying to do what we can in the music and lyrics to help people relate to the sense of frustration that’s so prevalent,” John agrees. “I don't think we have ever had such ‘political’ thoughts going through our brains in the process of making a record as we have had with this one. There are monsters lurking all over it, even in the pretty bits.”