Josh Rouse has put out enough wonderful albums by now that he’s earned the right to get away with something experimental. His 2010 album El Turista was a distracting trifle that let him stretch his new Spanish-language skills and blend his laid back pop with some exotic European sounds.

While this could have been a stab at a Graceland-style major work, it was handled more like a side project, a diversion. Despite the ambitious musical melange, the songs themselves are quick pop ditties, high on sugar and low on meat.

There’s no doubt that El Turista makes Rouse’s discography more interesting and eclectic, but when stacked up against such masterworks as 1972 and Nashville, it feels like a pause between that work and incredible work yet to come.

But El Turista did produce one song that stuck with me. The hopeful plea of a wrongly imprisoned man looking forward to his release, ‘I Will Live On Islands’ sounds like a lost Paul Simon tune… ‘Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard’ by way of Hearts and Bones.