The quilt of Hiss Golden Messenger’s newest LP just about says all of it: If the world is certainly headed for its closing reckoning, we’d as effectively exit grinning. On the floor at the very least, Leap For Pleasure (Merge) is bandleader M.C. Taylor at his most, effectively, joyful. It additionally could also be his most totally realized batch of tunes, and it’s simply his least folky and most groove-focused—embracing R&B, reggae, new wave and a jazzy, refined rock spin that brings to thoughts Steely Dan.

Fifteen years in, may this be Hiss Golden Messenger’s definitive assertion? It’s uncertain. One thing tells us Taylor has a least one other decade of nice music in him. We checked in with him at house in North Carolina, just some days after the loss of life of yet one more rock icon.

What’s your tackle Robbie Robertson’s passing?
I’m an enormous fan of the Band. I’d be arduous pressed to think about a band that was extra instructive to me at time once I was discovering the wild and wooly world of what I suppose we’d name Americana now—or roots music. I positively placed on a few of these Band data final evening. They’re in my DNA. As a youthful man, I used to be type of sucked into the Robbie-versus-Levon (Helm) factor. I talked to Amy Helm about it—the title tracks for her final two data had been songs I wrote for her. After I was on the point of have a dialog with Robbie a number of years again, I requested Amy, “What’s the vibe right here? I do know your dad and Robbie had a publicly acrimonious cut up.” Amy’s place was like, “You already know what? It’s all good. My dad was difficult. Robbie and I are buddies.” So I went with that vibe. I don’t know if you happen to’ve learn his ebook, Testimony, nevertheless it’s fucking nice.

Is that this album quantity 10 for Hiss Golden Messenger?
I’ve heard 10. I’ve heard extra. I don’t suppose I’ve heard much less, however I’ve positively heard extra. [Laughs] Typically, once I’m pressured to speak about what number of data I’ve made, the subtext is, “Right here we go once more—one other one.” Not that I’m not happy with my catalog. However, to me, the music continues to really feel recent and illuminating.

How was the artistic course of totally different on Leap For Pleasure?
After I got down to compose this file, I wished to make one thing that wore the hope that’s at all times lurked across the edges of my music on its sleeve. The impetus for that got here from residing with my final file, (2021’s) Quietly Blowing It, which was deeply inside and inward going through. It’s quiet and really compact in a whole lot of methods, and it feels just like the fruits of that pressure of my music. I’ve made a whole lot of data which have danced in these inward locations.

Leap For Pleasure positively has a extra extroverted really feel.
Listening again to Quietly Blowing It once I was beginning to write no matter got here subsequent, it occurred to that I couldn’t make a file like that once more. With that album got here all kinds of different stuff. It wasn’t simply the emotional stuff we had been collectively coping with, however all this different shit: melancholy, nervousness, a scarcity of readability about whether or not I may hold doing this. I’m getting older, my children are getting older. I’ve missed a lot at house due to this job that I’ve. I really feel like I wanted to flip my script a bit of bit or undergo from diminishing returns. Coupled with that’s this totally unimaginable band that performs with me. Our stay reveals are very up, very cathartic. They groove. The trail of least resistance was to chase the power we now have collectively onstage.

You use keyboards with some fascinating outcomes on Leap For Pleasure. “Shinbone” has an fascinating Speaking Heads really feel with that off-kilter synth line.
I do know quite a bit about music, however I do know completely zero in regards to the Speaking Heads. However I used to be insistent that we did a whole lot of melodic composition collectively as a band—and I do know there are members who’re massive Speaking Heads followers. That synth line on “Shinbone” is one thing Alex Bingham, my bass participant, got here up with when he was messing round with an MPC sampler. That little melody popped out, and everybody was like, “Wait, what was that?” It ended up being a extremely vital a part of the music.

In video for the primary single, “Nu-Grape,” you seem like one of many Fruit Of The Loom guys.
[Laughs] That was so enjoyable. Anybody who is aware of me would say, “Mike is a severe dude, however he’s additionally a fairly humorous dude who doesn’t take issues too significantly.” That’s not the image of me you’d essentially decide up if you happen to take heed to the primary 5 – 6 Hiss data. I wished to have a extremely good time making this video. We had been considering, “What would make it humorous? Let’s get Jonny Fritz to be in it—he’s like a star ready to occur.” I simply wished to maintain it mild.

What’s the story behind cowl picture?
The whole lot about making Leap For Pleasure felt simple, besides for locating the quilt. I used to be going in every single place attempting to determine it out. Nothing felt prefer it was amplifying the music, and I used to be utterly stumped. It was near being drawback as a result of the deadline was approaching. There’s an image that hangs on the wall of my home. It’s a photograph I took possibly 4 or 5 years in the past. We had been swimming on the pool, and there’s a lot there—definitely for me, as a result of I do know these two individuals higher than I do know anybody. I glanced up at it within the hallway and was like, “Wait a second, there’s one thing in it that feels just like the feelings on the file.” I requested my children whether or not it could be OK to make use of it, and I defined the ramifications of it. They stated it was high quality, however my daughter was like, “I want I used to be older within the image.” There’s nothing I may do about that.

—Hobart Rowland