Damien Jurado ★★★★ The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania MARAQOPA. CD/DL/LP

Own-label follow-up to last year’s What’s New, Tomboy.

“DAMIEN IS back on Twitter, give him a shout!” it says on Jurado’s website. So MOJO did and it led to a blank page – somehow sadly appropriate for an artist who’s released consistently good lo-fi albums since the mid-’90s and still remains under the radar. His 20th album has production that sounds home-made, as if he’s singing beside you on the sofa while the bass player, drummer and peep-y keyboard player are playing in the empty attic upstairs. The 10 new songs – slow-to-midtempo folk – are about people, most of them broken (the man who lost his soul in warm opener Helena; the man without the courage or the shoes to walk away in Johnny Caravella). Though it’s not without hope. “Time we let go,” Jurado’s echoey voice sings in closer Male Customer #1, one of many highlights, that include Hiding Ghosts and the empty, beautiful Minnesota.