"I went looking for peace," says songwriter M.C. Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger about his new album Quietly Blowing It. "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." Quietly Blowing It was written and arranged by Taylor in his home studio_his 8' x 10' sanctuary packed floor to ceiling with books, records, and oldguitars_as he watched the chaotic world spin outside his window. "Writing became a daily routine," he explains, "and that was a ballast for me. Having spent so much time on the road over the past ten years, where writing consistently with any kind of flow can be tricky, it felt refreshing. And beingin my studio, which is both isolated from and totally connected to the life of my family, felt appropriate for these songs." Between March and June, Taylor wrote and recorded upwards of two dozen songs_in most cases playing all of the instruments himself_ before winnowing the collection down and bringing them to the Hiss band. In July, the group of musicians, with Taylorin the production seat, went into Overdub Lane in Durham, NC, for a week, where they recorded Quietly Blowing It as an organic unit honed to a fine edge from their years together on the road. Throughout Quietly Blowing It, Taylor brings his keen eye to our "broken American moment" _ as he first sang on Hiss Golden Messenger's critically acclaimed, GRAMMYr- nominated Terms of Surrender (2019)_in ways that feel devastatingly intimate and human. Beginning with the wanderer's lamentof "Way Back in the Way Back," Taylor carries the listener on a musical journey that continually returns to themes of growing up, loss, obligation, and labor with piercing clarity, and his musical influences
