Possessed by Paul James is not a band but the brainchild of musician and composer Konrad Wert. It sat neglected in the pile longer than it should have because "Possessed by Paul James" struck me as, well, irritating. Meanwhile, I was at the receiving end of occasional email prompts, politely phrased inquiries as to whether I'd had a chance to listen to it yet, from individuals whose tastes in music I respect sufficiently to realize I could not ignore them forever.

The other day, on impulse, I put the CD on the player and sat with it all the way through. And then I returned to it the next day, and the day after that. I thought, and think at this very moment as the disc spins, How am I going to review this? Frankly, I am certain that everybody who writes about Wert or As We Go Wandering is forced to ponder some version of that question.

Let me put it this way. It's an acoustic album, played on instruments one associates with traditional folk music: guitar, mandolin, fiddle and oldtime banjo, augmented by low-key bass and drums. The melodies aren't exactly stolen from folk songs, but they give the impression that they could have been. They pull you inside their hearts and lull you with their rhythms. The lyrics, which appear plainspoken but turn out to be everything but, don't so much tell stories as give voice to a sensibility that's observational and empathetic, bespeaking a sort of unforced kindness. Not in an icky way, let me stress. It's a generosity of spirit that is never sappy or unlinked from the hard realities of the world.

The melodies have a startlingly instant appeal. I doubt that I had got 10 seconds into the opening cut, "Come Back in My Mind" (which with different words could have been something from the Southern Mountains), before my attention was all rapt. Wert's vocals are perfectly fitted to his songs. In fact, it's hard to conceive how they could be sung by anyone else.

The promotional sheet quotes Wert, who grew up Mennonite, on the influence punk rock had on him in his early adulthood. As far from punk as you can get, the songs on Wandering betray no whisper of such provenance. Here and there I detect hints of everybody from Pete Seeger to 1960s singer-songwriters (if none in particular) to Son Volt, but they're faint, elusive, likely imaginary. The album feels at once comfortingly familiar and indescribably strange. It practically defines sui generis.

One thing I'm not imagining, however, is the spell Wandering weaves. I've never experienced its like. Think of it as plumbing a radical, subversive beauty, or invent your own category. Just about any way you hear it is going to reward you. And afterwards you're guaranteed to be left wondering, What was that?