Maquiladora To Rerelease White Sands and Ritual of Hearts with 9 Previously Unreleased Tracks, Saint Cecilia's Drowning White Sands and Ritual of Hearts Revisited, on Acuarlea Discos (Spain) on March 25th
Maquiladora is: Eric Nielsen, Bruce McKenzie & Phil Beaumont
With occasional guests from Black Heart Procession, Modest Mouse, Each playing a mixed bag of instruments.

Maquiladora create songs from a sense of place.

Tucked in the south-west corner of the US is San Diego, a city bordered on the north by suburban trail to Los Angeles, to the west by the spirit of the Pacific Ocean, to the east by the vast dimension of the Borrego Desert, and to the south the cacophony of sites and sounds that makes Tijuana - home of the busiest international border crossing in the world.

Why the geography lesson?
Because all these are constant source of inquiry and inspiration for Maquiladora.

The band's name comes from their birth in a warehouse. (A Maquiladora is the Mexican term for a sweatshop) Lyrics were written on travels both foreign and internal. Albums recorded in former funeral chapels, warehouses, school halls and attics that send a homing call to resonant sounds that travel to places both familiar and strange.

Acuarela is releasing a new take on Maquiladora's acclaimed early works in "St. Cecilia's Drowning - Ritual of Hearts and White Sands Revisited." A re-mastered collection of songs recorded between 1995 and 2002, including 9 previously unreleased songs, these recordings present a graceful invitation into the musical journey of this reclusive band.

As Magnet Magazine's Fred Mills puts it "on the second and third Maquiladora albums, a sound as fully-formed as I could wish from an artist. From White Sands' opening strains, all rustic, country-folk-twang and elegiac vocal falsetto, to the shifting waves of
tribal psychedelia that comes later on; from Ritual of Hearts' minimalist, brooding blooze to its yearning, gospel-tinged drone-pop; from both records' invocations of everyone from Neil Young, Tom Waits and the Band to the Red House Painters, Giant Sand and Lambchop: Maquiladora's re-envisioning of the Americana form was profound,
moving, and utterly unique." In 2001 he wrote in Magnet that Ritual of Hearts is "Single of the year - Bar none"

Basement-life said Ritual of Hearts is a 'brutally sincere folk tinged masterpiece.'

Blackbook wrote "These reclusive Californians do for country music what Radiohead did for Brit pop: dismantle the machine and rebuild it with alien parts."

The menu of instruments that catered to these recordings stretches from the expected guitar, drums and bass to hammond organs, piano, melodica, xylophone, waterphone, accordion, lap steel, flute, gas pump, golf ball, lungs throat and tongues.

Having toured in 19 countries including three tours in Japan, Maquiladora will play the Tanned Tin Festival and tour through Spain and the rest of Europe in support of Acaurela's release in 2008.