It’s been a minute (14 years) since we last had an album from Jesse Sykes. Her core band has shrunk to just her and former Whiskeytown guitarist Phil Wandscher. There was an apparent need to respectfully mourn the former iteration, but while the new duo format retains elements of previous work (Sykes’ uniquely ethereal voice, for one) this linguistically confusing album feels like a fresh start.

The mood is more stripped-back and intimate compared to the reasonably heavy Marble Son, no less weighty but more assured and confident. The type of thing that comes with age, time and reflection. “This is where I stay / But this is not my home” Sykes sighs on ‘Gentle Chaperone’, her gossamer-light vocals gliding over the arrangement alongside fellow gothic ponderer Marissa Nadler. It’s a statement of fact, an acceptance of ephemerality that has always been a part of Sykes’ musical make-up, but now it feels lived-in and positive instead of anxiety-inducing.

Touches of violin and keys bolster ‘Gentle Chaperone’ and ‘Winter’s Empty Pages’, ‘Dead End Pools’ has a bluesy, waltzy feel to it and the title track calls to mind the Southern Gothic tradition with its twang and echo. But the most striking musical choices are Wandscher’s sprawling solos that close several songs, particularly ‘Dewayne’ and ‘Feather Treasure,’ as though being let loose after Sykes is done wrestling with mortality once more.

Forever, I’ve Been Being Born is an album that could only be made over the age of 50, a lifetime’s worth of experience informing every moment. It doesn’t demand your attention, but earns it with tender exclamations and unexpected realisations. Sykes sings of the “last words of a broken record” as ‘A New Medium’ brings down the curtain, its recurring thread of rebirth combining with a layered, musical quip. Trends and scenes emerge and recede, but the music will be born again and again and again…