HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER
DEVOTION: SONGS ABOUT RIVERS & SPIRITS & CHILDREN (MERGE)
Devotion: Songs About Rivers and Spirits and Children is a limited-edition deluxe box set which includes remastered reissues of the classic Hiss albums Bad Debt, Poor Moon, and Haw as well as Virgo Fool, a rarities compilation that will only be available physically as part of this collection.
Both the 4-CD and 4-LP sets are housed in a cloth-wrapped, foil-stamped slipcase and feature original iconographic artwork by Sam Smith, an exclusive foldout poster, full lyrics, and new liner notes by New Yorker writer Amanda Petrusich and MOJO editor John Mulvey.
The vinyl set also includes a digital download of all tracks. -- What struck me about Hiss Golden Messenger_and my absorption in these early records was instantaneous_is that Taylor's songs are completely and unfailingly honest about how stupid and frustrating it is to be a person.
But then, of course, he finds magnificence anyway: "Hallelujah anyhow" is how he put it later.
_Amanda Petrusich "Even on his most raw and unadorned album, Bad Debt, or on his most troubled, Haw, Taylor is still striving for that next level.
(...) His music articulates an untethered spiritual meaning, one which can make sense to those of us who have no coherent system of belief.
On these albums, you can hear a mission, a compassionate vision, being improvised and fleshed out exponentially, as Taylor's sense of community and his place in it grows with every release.
Also, they really fucking swing. _John Mulvey