Lateness Of Dancers, due this September, is Hiss Golden Messenger’s first release for Merge. No matter how he dresses them up, the man knows how to write simple songs that cut to the core, and he’s about to release a new batch of them. And there is the expansive ordeal captured on last year’s Haw, a record that, like most Hiss Golden Messenger releases, applied the haunting sounds of Taylor’s solo recordings to full-bodied folk-rock reminiscent of Lambchop and Bonnie “Prince” Billy. There is the two-man version of the band that Taylor used to tour around with drummer and recording partner Scott Hirsch, scraping and howling and eliciting tingles. There is the 2010 solo effort Bad Debt, reissued earlier this year, a stark, shiver-inducing collection Taylor recorded around the table of his North Carolina home. Taylor’s roots-rock project Hiss Golden Messenger has taken many forms over the course of seven years and four LPs. And I was just like, 'Man, this is so not how I feel right now.' There's a lot of sort of deep emotions that come with this time of year.M.C. It's music that's meant to drive your heart rate up and make you shop with a sort of frenzy. I was in some big box store and I just sort of had this epiphany because they were playing this very - you know the type of music - very aggressive, brash, Christmas music. Maybe that's just the way that my brain is put together. I was just, I think, existentially flummoxed at the way that human beings can live with this profound denial. How did that lead you to record your own versions of "Oh Come All Ye Faithful," "Joy to the World" and others, including some new ones that you wrote? So, I think it behooves us to pay attention to what they what they were doing." You're in a big box retailer in the lead up to Christmas last year, and you find yourself all mightily offended by what was coming through the speakers. I think I probably said something like, 'Let's try this song and just think of how Curtis Mayfield might have done it.' Knowing that, we're not trying to make a record that sounds like Curtis Mayfield, but there are elders that came before us that have already been in the same territory that we are exploring. He excelled at that sort of understated groove that is just like quietly trucking along - bumbling along, I should say. Curtis always sang in such a beautiful falsetto. I sort of have have an idea about what I want the painting to look like at the end. Do you set out with a sonic canvas in mind when you write? And part of it is, there's a great R&B feel there that I love. The funny thing about that is that, if any piece of art has a chance of resonating with a huge group of people, I think it actually is those moments that are so small and so personal and so so relatable." When I got to "It will if we let it" - the sound of that song lifted me up before I even caught a hint about what the lyrics were. I'm trying not to write something that I'm hoping will resonate with an arena full of people I'm trying to write something that is a very small and sharp moment that is very familiar to me. So, I'm trying not to write big, if that makes any sense. "I think that a song works when it's coming from a very small place. And I guess that's something that that you were really thinking about? You did that on quite a few songs on this record. When I think about the songs that you wrote for "Quietly Blowing It, I think you take a lot of big subjects that can work both externally as you look outward, and then you focus them inward.
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