Heart Like A Levee

Hiss Golden Messenger return on Merge Records in October 2016 with their sixth full-length album Heart Like a Levee. The eleven songs on Heart Like a Levee are immediate, dealing with themes that include leaving and returning, belief and trust, guilt, honesty, and life on the road. Hiss Golden Messenger creative force M.C. Taylor says, I wrote these songs during a time of transition and doubt. The process was raw, but also joyous. I spent a lot of time with these words and chords in all types of weather. In the end I learned more about myself making this record than any in the past, and that's one important way for me to gauge whether an album was worth making. I want to make records that feel both minor- and major-key at the same time; maybe 'bittersweet' is a good word for it. Life is simultaneously happy and sad at once, and that's how I want my records to feel. I think that's how Heart Like a Levee feels. The highly anticipated release was self-produced by Taylor and Bradley Cook and recorded in Durham, NC, with Taylor's close-knit North Carolina collaborators: brothers Phil and Bradley Cook on piano and bass, respectively;Matt McCaughan on drums; Tift Merritt and Alexandra Sauser-Monnig on backing vocals; and Matt Douglas and Michael Lewis on horns.