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Once again, transglobal guitar guru Ry Cooder seemingly and effortlessly delivers a musical utopia, a soundscape where cultures can meet as equals (think Buena Vista Social Club). On Mambo Sinuendo, he and Cuban fret legend Manuel Galbán of the famed Los Zafiros revive the seductive Havana sound of fifty years ago, where Mambo and American jazz mingled with mirthful ease. Cooder and Galbán produce some impressive guitar interplay over a laid-back Cuban rhythm section of two drum kits, congas and bass. The album is laced with that promiscuous "Spanish tinge"--originally a Cuban import by way of New Orleans, although an unacknowledged one. On the flip side, the recent Americanization of Cuban music is not a new trend either; Cubans have remodeled American styles just as much as they have been commodified by them. Perhaps what is engaging about Mambo Sinuendo is not its exotic appeal but rather its back-to-the-future familiarity.

The result is clearly shown in the introduction of the album with "Drume Negrita," a track that captures the ear with an unfussy conga beat, and then builds with layers of upright bass and atmospheric string bending. A newly composed track for the sessions, the title cut "Mambo Sinuendo," navigates between traditional and contemporary pop sensibilities with somewhat hokey charm, thanks to the spacecraft noises and metallic vocal chants. "Los Twangeros" is sure to get your hips swerving under the island sun as a stoner surf guitar reclines on vibraphone riffs and conga hits. The gem of the album may be Fain and Webster's "Secret Love," (the only American written song), featuring some beautiful sparing guitar work between Cooder and Galbán. They shuffle around one another's sound, wistfully suggesting melodies and chords and swapping solos until the song is laid to slumber.

The ambiguity the album evokes is what makes it so alluring, and primarily, a curiosity. Nearly 100% instrumentals, the lack of words allows us to take our seat as armchair traveler: to paint our own visual foreground to the backdrop of Mambo Sinuendo. Like the Rogers & Hammerstein musical, South Pacific, Martin Denny's Afro-desia and other exotica hits of the postwar 1950's and 60's, this music resonates with a certain nostalgia and fantasy now produced in hotel bars littered with lounging Bermuda shorts, bamboo sticks and fancy fruit cocktails. Sit back and enjoy the ride but don't be shocked if this latest Cooder fusion doesn't really light your fuse. This is not a brawny cultural expression of deep transformation, but instead may reflect Cooder's privileged space in the global music industry to move legally (kudos to Bill Clinton) and fluidly (kudos to Ry) between the U.S. and Cuba. This is ironic considering the embargo, stringent sanctions, and ever-increasing limitations placed on travel and the flow of cultural goods between the two countries. But Mambo Sinuendo does offer us some sonic insight into how light-hearted collaboration and communion are possible, how both Americans and Cubans can concede some territory.