*** Ned Sublette

COWBOY RUMBA

(Palm Pictures)

Epiphanies usually alter longstanding patterns, and when New York experimentalist Ned Sublette fell into the world of salsa in the mid '80s, it was good-bye dissonance and hello montuno. But one old love refused to be forsaken. Nothing, not even the most ecstatic merengue band, would let him discount the country music of his West Texas youth. So here we have it: almost two decades after Eugene Chadbourne dragged Johnny Paycheck through the squeaks and squawks of free improv, Sublette takes honky-tonk to Havana.

And guess what, it works. A majordomo on the Latin scene, Sublette helms the tiny but potent Qbadisc label. So he's down with NG La Banda and other titans of the style, and he knows where all the accents go. And though you might think I'm full of moco, some of the originals he's penned for Cowboy Rumba are worthy of Jones or Haggard. "Cheater's Motel" explains the tawdry joy of paying $16.98 for an afternoon of sin. "Feelin' No Pain" exalts the haze of a whiskey-soaked evening. The singer's bosso conjures vintage-era John Stewart, and he slides around the claves with enough aplomb to make Cowboy Rumba the most entertaining oddity of the season.

-- Jim Macnie