Every year more ears come to hear David Berman, author of the Silver Jews songbook, as the most lyrical songwriter of his generation: unrivaled, unbridled, and undone.

In the spring of 2019, Berman returned after a decadelong musical hiatus with a new album from a previously rumored, much-anticipated project he called Purple Mountains, and what feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy: to share some more of himself before taking his own life later that summer at the age of 52.