Like the song goes, this is something special. Joseph Kolean and Joshua Van Wynen have created this gorgeous, stately video for Hiss Golden Messenger’s “Busted Note,” the Jericho-bound penultimate tune on Haw. Shot in various desolate locales in Colorado–much of it in Great Sand Dunes National Park–the film subtly references the desert setting and Biblical themes of the song without becoming programmatic. We hope you enjoy it. Be sure to check out some of the filmmakers’ other work here. You can buy the album here.

 

 

HGM is currently touring in the UK and Ireland. See here for a list of dates and venues.

In other news, we were delighted and proud to see the recent coverage of Haw in John Pareles’ Playlist column in The New York Times this past Sunday, May 28. Among his assessment were the following lines, which we love:

“This measured, steadfast roots-rock band can pick lilting folk-rock tunes, give its lead guitar a Celtic bite, make its fiddle hint at Appalachia or Bollywood and find the gravity in a waltzing ballad like “Cheerwine Easter,” which advises, “This is the day of reckoning.” The songs ponder mortality and devotion, love and family, searching for peace of mind and finding it, no doubt temporarily, in the folky benediction of “What Shall Be (Shall Be Enough).”

– John Pareles, The New York Times

Also on the list of things we love is “Go Wash in the Beautiful Stream,” Grayson Currin’s cover-story profile of Hiss Golden Messenger for the Independent Weekly. Well worth reading for its level of detail and insight. That’s Jeremy Lange’s photo of M.C. Taylor in Durham’s beloved (Brian) Eno River above.

Jordan Lawrence also has some wonderful and complimentary things to say about HGM and PoB in his recent feature for Blurt Magazine. We’re actually too modest and blushing to excerpt them here, but you can read the piece, entitled “That Sweet Southern Sound: Hiss Golden Messenger and the Paradise of Bachelors label,” here.

Our man Bryan Reed penned a great profile of PoB that covers our history, mission, and practices for the crucial Shuffle Magazine. That’s posted here. 

PopMatters posted another glowing review of Haw by Matthew Fiander, which includes the following choice words:

9/10 (PM Pick). “MC Taylor and Scott Hirsch have been quietly making beautiful records for a few years now as Hiss Golden Messenger. Theirs is a sound that is deeply southern, tied to the land and the sounds that come from that land. What’s remarkable about Haw is that its terrain has many strata, many levels that both pile on each other and confuse together. It creates a new musical land in its image, a music with its own topography of melody and emotion, built to mine the shadows of valleys and crags of mountains not for answers or solutions, but for the right questions. It’s a sound so perfectly constructed, so surprising in its execution—seriously, hear the horn solo on “Cheerwine Easter” and try not to be floored—that description does it no good.”

Finally, there’s this dispatch from Any Decent Music?, a website that summarizes and aggregates music reviews from more than 50 publications worldwide. They concluded for a while last week that HGM’s Haw was the top-reviewed album IN THE WORLD. That’s a heavy mantle, but we’ll take it on.