Hiss Golden Messenger with Alexa Rose at the Fine Line

“I went looking for peace,” says songwriter M.C. Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger about his new album Quietly Blowing It, out June 25, 2021, on Merge Records. “It’s not exactly a record about the state of the world—or my world—in 2020, but more a retrospective of the past five years of my life, painted in sort of impressionistic hues. Maybe I had the presence of mind when I was writing Quietly Blowing It to know that this was the time to go as deep as I needed to in order to make a record like this. And I got the time required in order to do that.” He pauses and laughs ruefully. “I got way more time than I needed, actually.”

Originally from Alleghany County, Virginia, Alexa Rose now lives in Black Mountain, North Carolina. She grew up singing and playing piano, but she didn’t begin to develop her songwriting until she was in her early twenties, leaving home for the first time after college. “I take pride in where I’m from,” says Alexa, “and my appreciation for community and the value of small towns definitely informs my writing. But there’s also what comes from touring, the joy of driving around and seeing the rest of the world. That’s just as much an influence as where I’m from.” This heightened sense of the world suffuses Headwaters, giving it its cinematic bent without sacrificing any of the intimacy of her first album, Medicine for Living.