Hiss Gold­en Mes­sen­ger is the North Car­oli­na-based project of MC Tay­lor, who unveils his new album I’m Peo­ple, on May 1st via Chrysalis Records. Our first glimpse of the mate­r­i­al is the uplift­ing sin­gle, In The Mid­dle Of It, just released.

The “intense­ly human record” injects a much-need­ed note of opti­mism – it’s can only go up from here, is MC Tay­lor’s mes­sage. In The Mid­dle of It will have you danc­ing, or at least sway­ing, to this seduc­tive­ly charm­ing slice of Amer­i­cana, Tay­lor’s sooth­ing, lived-in vocals com­bined with the rich instru­men­ta­tion. The lyrics grap­ple with “heart­break and exhil­a­ra­tion… the absolute black com­e­dy of being alive in Amer­i­ca cir­ca 2026”, ask­ing what oth­er choice do we have than to be hopeful?

Tay­lor calls In The Mid­dle Of It his “San­ta Fe song.” Writ­ten in a cor­ner room of the El Rey Court hotel, he cites “High­way 10 through the desert towns, Los Ange­les to El Paso …  The engine sings out over the long light­ning fields. In the mid­dle of it: the coun­try, the sto­ry, the relationships.”

Says Tay­lor about the new album: “The songs are about run­ning towards and away from things, about rea­son­able and real­is­tic hope and expec­ta­tions, about hav­ing babies, get­ting old­er, love and lust and luck and music. They are songs about soli­tude and heart­break and pover­ty of the spir­it, and maybe com­mu­ni­ty as some kind of anti­dote for these par­tic­u­lar types of sick­ness­es. Shed­ding old skin. Mys­tery as a beau­ti­ful necessity

The new album I’m Peo­ple was record­ed at Dream­land, a decom­mis­sioned church out­side of Wood­stock, New York. “I want­ed the record to feel the way that upstate place feels, deep in the pock­et, a place of poet­ry, earth and sky and moun­tains. A place where a lot of my favourite music has come from,” Tay­lor comments. 

The release in 2021 called Sanc­tu­ary review here was how I first alight­ed upon Hiss Gold­en Mes­sen­ger. This lead me to seek out more of his work – for­tu­nate­ly he’s a pro­lif­ic artist and there’s plen­ty for new fans to dis­cov­er.

Track­list:
1. In The Mid­dle Of It 
2. Who You Gonna Run To?
3. Shaky Eyes
4. Mer­cy Ave
5. I’m Peo­ple
6. Seneca (Time Is A Moth­er, Baby)
7. Last Orders
8. Gabriel
9. Heavy World
10. Alright
11. Spir­it Cat
12. Depends on the River

Hiss Gold­en Mes­sen­ger I’m Peo­ple, release date 1st May. In the Mid­dle of It out now
Pre-order/Pre-save I’m People