First of several travel-based albums to be released by Cowboy Junkies, this album has flavors of southern China, where M. Timmins’ family spent a few months. The general tone is slow and languid, as most CJ albums are, but there are some unexpectedly lively, noisy, and grinding tracks and sections of songs. A nice step forward for a long-lived band.

1. Park bandstand brass band in the (titular, “People’s”) park, children singing
2. Slow folk song that you would expect from Cowboy Junkies
3. Slow, driving, noisy, churning dirge that you would hardly expect
4. Catchy pop song with a helping of rock ‘n’ noise
5. Plodding
6. Slow but swinging, nice textures
7. Mysterious, beautiful
8. Creepy echo effects that have no set temporal relationship to the vocals being echoed, they just drift before, after, around, over …
9. Distorted Chinese-flavored pop music
10. Run-of-the-mill mid-tempo
11. Slow country twang
12. Slowly slumping forward, Chinese vocals and instruments give this track the most “flavor” of any of these travel-influenced tracks
13. Limp musically but evocative lyrically
14. Teensy phone dial tune followed by “Sorry, no answer” message