Calexico  Hot Rail  Quarterstick  Qs62CD.

JC and I and a couple of friends are off to the Southwest in August to sweat our bollocks off.  Thanks to some, erm, haphazard planning that's the only time we can get down to the Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Anyway, appropriate I guess to investigate the burgeoning music scene in Arizona.  Well, Tucson, at least.  And, it's a pretty small movement based around Howe Gelb and a collection of some fine, fine sharp inventive eclectic musicians.  Gelb has recorded truckloads of stuff under the name of Giant Sand.  The cast fluctuates like tumbleweeds in the desert (I had to use that metaphor at some time!).  Gelb also cut the quirky Hisser, on his front porch from the sounds of it: tres lo-fi.  It's great go get it.

Otherwise, sans Gelb sometime Sand members Joey Burns and John Covertino record under the name of Calexico.  Their logo, I am reliably informed is in Mexican gangSTA style.  Their music is bitching: so eclectic that it could be described as country, Tex-Mex, new age, rock, folk or possibly world music.  Labels aside, the music rolls across the desert bouncing from Cinemascope soundscapes to gentle yet bitter ballads.

Calexico's latest platter, Hot Rail, starts with the thudding of bass drum, the curtain draws back and the Mariachi band kicks in, followed by some serious slide guitar.  It's a swinging southwestern instrumental called "El Picador", you know the bastard that shoves the pic into the bull's neck.  Okay, PC-ness, aside this is a blast of an opening to one fabulous collection of stylistic clashes, edgy ambience and walks on the wild side.

Onwards to the "Ballad of Cable Hogue" - er there's French lyrics here - but it seems to be about some wicked woman "I'd be better off with scorpions and snakes"  "This love will be the death of mine"  Same title as a Peckinpah movie, but less violent thank goodness.  It's a cowboy song about love, money and double crossing, laced with zydeco squeezebox, Sonoran horns, country beat and alt vocals.

Interspersed throughout the album are a bunch of pure atmosphere tracks with, er, original titles like "Untitled III" and "Untitled II".  Alright there also a track called "Ritual Road Map".  These cuts come complete with gentle breezes of squeezebox, glass-like vibes, deep elegiac bows and chicken-plucking string plucking.  Sort of controlled desert landscape music.

"Fade" is another brittle ballad displaying cutting edge edginess slowed down cause it's too hot in Arizona, while "Sonic Wind" is not so much wind as warm front.  Whispered vocals, car alarm like sound post-rock orchestra and that nice big bass drum.

From here we travel to Ol' Mexico in "Muleta" classic Tex-Mex with big hats and moustaches, thrumming spanish guitar, marimbas, margaritas, violins, girls in pretty coloured dresses, cheesy Herb Albert trumpets and an electric guitar filling in and out.  Outstanding.  Sort of Santana in Tijuana without the histrionics and Carlos's pension book.

Change of pace time with "Mid-town" sort of jazz-vibe infused drone.

Next up, a tad grungy "Service and Repair" (a gas station ballad?) a sort of sub Neil Young from the Rust Never Sleeps period thrum along.  And finally a pedal steel guitar!

"Drenched" is almost literally drenched in tremolo guitar!  It kicks into a full Technicolor ballad that pulls at every emotion.

The twelfth track, unhelpfully called "16 Track Scratch" is  the only real filler here - a collage of stuff, innit.  Maracas, please!

Penultimately, the perfectly executed, almost shining "Tres Avisos" brings us back to Tex-Mex cross over.

Covertino and Burns then add up all the previous atmosphere tracks and chuck 'em out the window for "Hot Rail".  Through that window we hear the shout of "hot rail!" by railroad workers - ie there's a train coming.  Cue plaintive train engine horn blaring in the hot August sun.  Guitars plucking gently in the shimmering heat haze, sup a cerveza, kick back and wait for the train to pass.

Hot Rail is an evocative, thoughtful stylistic exploration.  Like Yo La Tengo's very different "And then nothing turned itself inside-out", this is an album that will creep up on you, tug your collar and say in whispered tones "play me, sucker."  But, unlike that train passing through in the last rack, Hot Rail leaves a deep imprint in your musical conscience. 

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