“14 tracks for the dusty veranda”

These are songs that make us think of vast desert landscapes and tumbleweed, the long sequences from Paris Texas and the relentless heat of the deep Midwest. Of course it's all one big cliché, but there's a whole movement of songwriters out there who seem to have borrowed from this mythology for their musical vocabulary, with influences lifted from traditional Blues, from the classic sound of John Fahey's Takoma label and from the more complex workings of Spanish guitar playing. For all those of you dreaming of sitting in a rocking chair on a dusty veranda somewhere in the sun, here is what we consider to be the ideal soundtrack...