From the grammatical quirks of the title onwards, every facet of Life, and Another seems designed to bewilder. The sixth album from Nevada’s Erin Birgy – whose prehistoric-sounding moniker isn’t exactly an exercise in lucidity either – tells stories in an oblique, faintly mystical way: lyrics teem with odd images (“try to see people in the spiders chasing you”) and random characters (Debbie Dubai) appear without explanation; suggestions of sentiment ripple through, and snippets of comprehensible thought surface sporadically.

Coupled with the record’s sound – a continuation of Birgy’s dense, multi-instrumental jazz-inflected folk-pop in which the most distinctive elements are an elastic approach to tempo and a tendency to swallow her words – the suggestion is of a world pregnant with profundity, but whose precise meaning is entirely unavailable to the listener.

It is frustrating – until you decide to lose your bearings completely in Mega Bog’s particular confections. Co-produced by Big Thief’s James Krivchenia (also Birgy’s partner), the album takes its lush, wandering base and adds other flavours: there is spacey 80s electric guitar on Maybe You Died; glam with slouchy sax on Crumb Back; Adorable sports shoegaze shimmer; Weight of the Earth, on Paper recalls Remain in Light-era Talking Heads.

It takes repeated listens before hooks and memorable melodies begin to reveal themselves. Once they do, Life, and Another becomes a far more gratifying listen: swamped, at times, with unconvincing mystery, but beautiful, too.