Things look a bit different around here. There’s a reason for that: Regular freelance work dried up for me last July. Not much has gone on with full-time work, or anything else. So,. whatever meagre earnings i had have pretty much evaporated. And now, when it came to certain subscriptions — i.e. WordPress — I can’t afford it at all. Admittedly, things are extremely frustrating and discouraging. But I’m trying to keep the show running as best as I can until things get better. Hopefully. But in this environment, who the fuck really knows?

Arizona-based instrumental trio Destertones specializes in a sound that they’ve simultaneously described as “hypnotic soul-meets-desert groove” and as feeling “like dry heat, long shadows, and endless sky.

The trio’s recently released full-length debut, The Portal features album title track and opening track “The Portal,” a broodingly cinematic track anchored around a slow-burning and hypnotic grove that recalls JOVM mainstays Tinariwen, The Diasonics and Mildlife. Recorded live and straight-to-tape to get the song a human, imperfect touch, “The Portal” manages to evoke dry and dusty desert heat rising up from blacktop.