The first course is called Needle Drop, and it's potato chips with sour cream and onion dip, a streak of harissa running through it. The High Desert Sound is a serious five-course dinner. It opens on chips and dip anyway, and that's the spirit of the night.

The new seasonal series starts this Friday, September 25, at Más o Menos in Joshua Tree. Every course comes with its own drink pairing, and a DJ builds the soundtrack live while you eat. When the plates are cleared the room turns into a dance floor.

A menu that reads like a record

Chef Beren Ekine-Huett wrote the menu, and she wrote it in tracks. After Needle Drop comes Prelude: smoked beets and strawberries with koji-cultured cream, then gem lettuce with apple, pumpkin and pistachio dukkah. Deep Cuts is where the dinner settles in, with tuna, plum and Early Girl tomato over tostones, then eggplant with short rib, grilled shishito and Carolina Gold rice. The last course is Disco, a cereal-milk pudding under chocolate-hazelnut cremeux and cornflakes. Of course it's called Disco.

Locals may know Ekine-Huett's cooking from Mojave Gold in Yucca Valley, where she ran the kitchen, and before that Kitchen in the Desert. Late summer is all over this menu: golden beet and shiso in the pickles, Sungold tomatoes next to the rice. Vegans get two swaps, cashew labneh for the cream and Weiser melon for the tuna. Nonalcoholic pairings are available if you ask for them.

The sound is homegrown

Phil Bronco handles the soundtrack, building it in real time as dinner goes. Bronco is part of the Desert Groove Collective, a crew of Hi-Desert house DJs, and his recorded sets go out under the title Alive in Joshua Tree. That's a fair statement of where this music lives.

The series itself is curated by Chef Philip Stefani of The Red Dog Saloon in Pioneertown and The Copper Room in Yucca Valley. So a Pioneertown and Yucca Valley curator, a Yucca Valley chef and a Hi-Desert DJ crew are putting on a Friday night in a Joshua Tree bar. It's the Basin throwing a dinner party for itself.

Two ways in

Dinner is $125 a person, plus ticket fees. Doors open at 5 p.m., seating is at 5:30, and the ticket covers all five courses and the pairings that go with them.

At 8pm the after party starts, with Phil Bronco and Paul Silva on the bill and music until 1 a.m. Entry is free.

The choice is easy. If the menu made you hungry, book the dinner and hear the whole album, from the first chip to the last cornflake. If you just want to dance, you can do just that.