Hot Rail by Calexico

Hot Rail, released on May 9, 2000, on Quarterstick, finds Calexico deep in the borderlands that gave the Tucson band its name. Joey Burns and John Convertino, who had first played together in Los Angeles in Giant Sand, built the band around a sound that folds mariachi, conjunto, cumbia and tejano into dusty country, jazz and slow-burning post-rock.

It's widescreen, sun-bleached music that earns the "desert noir" tag, moody and spacious, with Latin rhythms and twanging country drifting through the haze like heat off the highway. "Ballad of Cable Hogue" is the track that caught on. Feast of Wire came next.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.