A vehicle for singer/songwriter Michael Taylor (M.C. Taylor) and multi-instrumentalist and recording engineer Scott Hirsch, Hiss Golden Messenger's fusion of classic rock, folk-pop, and sparse blues in various guises has seen Taylor compared to the likes of lo-fi legends Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Bill Callahan. Born and raised in Southern California, Taylor was inspired to pick up the guitar by his musician father, who had previously played in the Settlers, a pop outfit that once opened for John Denver. His first musical outing was with Scott Hirsch in the hardcore punk band Ex-Ignota. But the influences of the Beatles, the Byrds, and Buffalo Springfield proved too strong to ignore. He began writing his own songs, and in his late teens he moved to San Francisco, where he fronted the country-rock outfit the Court and Spark, who released four critically acclaimed albums before disbanding in 2007.
After relocating to North Carolina, Taylor and Hirsch began to record material under the alias of Hiss Golden Messenger, but Taylor performed entirely solo with just an acoustic guitar for accompaniment when it came to playing live. Following the release of albums Country Hai East Cotton and the vinyl-only Root Work through their Heaven and Earth Magic Recording Company, they signed a deal with U.K. label Black Maps, which distributed Hiss Golden Messenger's international debut, the nine-track acoustic mini-album Bad Debt, in 2010.
In 2011, the boutique label Paradise of Bachelors did a very limited LP run of Poor Moon, which sold out almost instantly. The pair also released Lord I Love the Rain on their own label. Tompkins Square re-released Poor Moon in 2012 as well as the single "Jesus Shot Me in the Head" b/w "Jesus Dub." A live, digital-only recording entitled Plowed: Live in Bovina was self-released that same year. Haw, a new studio recording by Hiss Golden Messenger, was issued by Light in the Attic in 2013.
Taylor has also been a college lecturer specializing in folklore, is responsible for the blog The Old Straight Track, and has helped edit a music education curriculum for Quincy Jones. A reissue of Bad Debt, HGM's lost first recording (a very limited edition to begin with, its remaining copies were destroyed in the PIAS warehouse fire), saw reissue by Paradise of Bachelors with bonus and unreleased material. Taylor signed to Merge Records in January 2014. Hiss Golden Messenger's debut for the label was entitled Lateness of Dancers and issued in September. Southern Grammar, a three-track EP titled for a track from the previous album, included a leftover from those sessions and another otherwise orphan track. It was released in February of 2015.
