I love hard country and latin dance music, and I'm always interested in offbeat fusions of seemingly disparate musical styles (like Greg Garing's blend of country and electronic dance music), but Ned Sublette's new album is... odd. Titled Cowboy Rumba, it's an audacious fusion of hard country and various styles of latin dance music. The man definitely knows his latin stuff -- he runs the supercool Qbadisc label, and he's worked with latin musicians for years. He's got an all-star lineup of 'em backing him up here (along with Lloyd Maines), and they sound excellent. I'm not so sure about the hard country part of the equation, which pretty much consists of Sublette's Texas twang and yer typical hard country lyrical subject matter -- unrequited love, drinkin', cheatin', etc. There's occasionally some other country elements in the mix (like Maines's pedal steel or dobro on a few tracks), but more often than not, you get a limited (but not unpleasant) hard country vocalist backing a hot latin band. It's done well, but does it work? Danged if I know.--don n.p. Ned Sublette - "Feeling No Pain" (and directly quoting "There Stands The Glass")
