Today a small brown package slid through the hole in the wall with the the usual collection of junk and bills. It fell with a plop and I tossed my MacBook aside to investigate.

Ripping the corrugated container to pieces, I grasp the latest audio treat from Ken Layne.

It’s a preview copy. You can’t buy it yet! Ha! You should be jealous! Ha! Ha!

You should buy it as soon as it becomes available, be it in the material world or the cyber world (iTunes, if you’re listening, you need clear some room on your shelf).

I’ve listened to it no less than 25 times today.

This little gem will be quite comfortable next to my copy of Layne’s “Fought Down,” which is only one of my all-time favorite CDs.

And I’m not just saying all this cause Layne’s a friend of some decade and a half or so — the man is simply a great singer-songwriter.

Part of what makes “Transcontinental” so special is it possesses such an original, fresh voice. Even as great as “Fought Down” was, Layne’s influences were starkly exposed — Gram Parsons and Rolling Stones, for instance. “Transcontinental” sounds like music of a man who has found his own universe.