Kristin Hersh is now quite used to combining music with writing, and Wyatt at the Coyote Palace (her third book/album – also check out 2010's solo album, Crooked, and 2013's Throwing Muses album, Purgatory/Paradise) is a streamlined paperback-sized package that features short stories/essays built around each of the 2CD's 24 songs.

Named after her autistic son’s exploration of a derelict apartment building next to Hersh’s studio, the songs are often as beautiful as you’d expect. Still, with two dozen of them on display, there are bound to be niggling, weak areas. In truth, the primarily acoustic treatments might, inevitably, have been best served across a single album.

The stories and essays, meanwhile, fuse song lyrics with tales of her son's wandering investigations. The result is personal, tender and upsetting in equal measure. kristinhersh.com