With Page France, Nau released 2005’s excellent “Hello, Dear Wind,” a remarkably cohesive folk-pop album founded in warped biblical and natural-world imagery. Throughout the album, royalty is disposed of in the junkyard, Jesus dances with some soldiers and tramps and death-angels are persuasively engaged in negotiation. It was re-released in 2006 on Suicide Squeeze Records and followed by “…and the Family Telephone,” at which point Nau became worn out. “Part of my brain has been collaborating with Cotton Jones for the past three years,” He confessed in a recent statement, “I had little time to entertain those desires…I felt mentally exhausted, and quickly became a difficult person to be around.” The band returned to Maryland and Nau acquired a day job.

Luckily he is now rested, and, as Nau would have us believe, not so difficult to be around.

For Cotton Jones, Nau has assumed the role of an irregularly introspective troubadour as opposed to the prophesier we knew from Page France.

The songs still concern the same grave topics, but the tone is elevated and significantly more resigned, seemingly matured in contrast to the prior rotations between overwhelming confidence and spiritual yearning. “All the demons in my head,” Nau sings matter-of-factly, “I’m leaving ‘em behind.”

Nicety: I’ll admit it is a genuine form of human expression which exists in all types of human culture, but we can nevertheless exists without it.

Jack, People’s Park

Necessity: The arts are the way we express our humanity and understand the humanity of others; they enable a dialogue that is necessary for carrying our culture forward.

Katy, Kirkwood Ave.

Nicety: Towards the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, art is a nicety but a very important nicety.

Kyle, Walnut St.

Necessity: Everything you see is art, including people. It is impossible to function without it.

Matt, Allison and Ryan, Buskirk Chumley Theater.