Hiss Golden Messenger - Jump For Joy (2023) [Hi-Res]

The songs that make up Jump for Joy—the sharpest and most autobiographical that M.C. Taylor has written under the Hiss name—read as a sort of epistolary, postcards between the present-day songwriter and his alias Michael Crow, a teenaged dreamer very much like Taylor himself, who trips his way through the 14 tunes that make up the record. In this way, Jump for Joy is a meditation on a life lived with art, and the ways that our hopes and dreams and decisions bump up against—and, with a little bit of luck, occasionally merge with—real life.

Produced by Taylor and engineered by longtime Hiss compatriot Scott Hirsch over two weeks in the late fall of 2022 at the fabled Sonic Ranch studio in Tornillo, TX, just a short walk from the Mexican border, Jump for Joy dances with joyful, spontaneous energy that feels like a fresh chapter in the Hiss Golden Messenger oeuvre. Taylor is accompanied throughout the album by his crack live band: guitarist Chris Boerner, bassist Alex Bingham, keyboardist Sam Fribush, and drummer Nick Falk, a collection of musicians that have helped make Hiss Golden Messenger’s live performances legendary affairs.

M.C. Taylor – acoustic and electric guitar, singing
Alex Bingham – bass, Juno, Prophet, MPC, OP-1, Mellotron, singing
Chris Boerner – acoustic and electric guitar, synthesizer
Nick Falk – drums and percussion, singing
Sam Fribush – piano, Hammond organ, Clavinet, Wurlitzer, Fender Rhodes, Yamaha CP-70, synthesizer, steel pan, singing

Matt Douglas – saxophone
Meg Duffy – singing
Alice Gerrard – counting
Tatiana Hargreaves – fiddle
Amy Helm – singing
Eric D. Johnson – singing
Aoife O’Donovan – singing

Produced by M.C. Taylor.