New Mexico musician Kevin Hume has a lot of musical friends, and most of them are on this album. But it’s not a record that is overly busy, just quite haunting, tender and good. The string-saturated intro which leads into the gist of the Arcade Fire-ish “Curtain Number One” is a good example of this as no words are uttered but none are needed. And the song never cuts through the tension, just winds itself around a gorgeous melody. Hume says this album is a “12-song, 4 -part song cycle” and he’s right on the mark with “Fanfare for the Common Wolf”, a strings-laden affair with a folksy, singer-songwriter hue to it. Throughout it all, Hume shines on with songs like “Glacier Bay” which is incredibly dreamy. But things take a noticeable up-tempo shift with the excellent “Towns Where We Live” and later on during “The Girl from Falling Water” which brings to mind Belle And Sebastian. Just as appealing is the Celtic-leaning title track. And the whirling closer, “A Good Tailwind”, is a lovely tune to boot.

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