Route 60, near Salome, Arizona

Unlike the banal -burgs, -fields, and -dales that crowd the Eastern seaboard, the names of the towns in the American West are often epic. Many of them seem primed for moments of redemption and revelation: Escalante, Enterprise, Salome, Aurora, Jackpot, Delta, Eureka, Searchlight, Paradise, Imperial, Vista, Sun City, Orderville.

Others, however, carry the dark echoes of historic moments of desperation and tragedy: Hell’s Backbone, Confusion Range, Tombstone, Death Valley Junction, Battle Mountain, Skull Valley, Badwater, Devil’s Hole.

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Füxa – City
from City/Metro. Darla, 1997 | buy some mp3s
An optimistic instrumental that pops and shimmers like a desert town on the horizon, ‘City’ is one of the brighter numbers from the erratic yet wonderful Detroit dream rock outfit. Also track down “Dreamlanding” and “Karmaloop”.