Merge Records will release Hiss Golden Messenger’s Heart Like A Levee on October 7th. Listen to the first song, “Biloxi,” is now streaming.

“The 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 forthcoming 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, Matt McCaughan on drums, Tift Merritt and Alexandra Sauser-Monnig on backing vocals and Matt Douglas and Michael Lewis on horns.

HEART LIKE A LEVEE TRACK LIST

1. Biloxi
2. Tell Her I’m Just Dancing
3. Heart Like a Levee
4. Like a Mirror Loves a Hammer
5. Smoky’s Song
6. Cracked Windshield
7. As the Crow Flies
8. Happy Day (Sister My Sister)
9. Say It Like You Mean It
10. Ace of Cups
11. Highland Grace