Bob Dylan’s New Album Could Incorporate Mexican Influences

Bob Dylan is reportedly working on a new album — and, in keeping with his habit of forward-thinking innovation, this one will have a markedly different sound.

Los Lobos member David Hidalgo — who collaborated with Dylan on his last studio album, 2009′s ‘Christmas Through The Heart’ — said he just wrapped recording sessions with the music legend at Jackson Browne‘s studio in Los Angeles.

So what can we expect to hear on the as-yet-unannounced disc?

Hidalgo, who grew up in a Mexican-American neighborhood in East L.A., says Dylan was especially taken with the Mexican instruments strewn around the studio (like the accordion and the guitar-like tres) and wanted to use them in the new songs.

“He’d say, ‘Wow, what’s that?’ He liked the sound. So we’d get it in there.”

As for working with Dylan, just because Hidalgo’s done it before doesn’t mean it was the same old, same old. In fact, the musician says it was nothing like their previous projects together.

“It was a great experience. And different. Each [time] has been different, all completely different approaches. It’s an amazing thing, how he keeps creativity. I don’t see how he does it.”

Hidalgo isn’t the only one who’s drawn inspiration from the iconic singer. A slew of artists recorded tracks for a Dylan tribute album released earlier this year, with Aerosmith‘s Joe Perry saying at the time, “If any songwriter has been a major contributor to the soundtrack of that generation, of our generation, it’s Bob Dylan.”