Over the past year or two, MC Taylor of “Hiss Golden Messenger has become not just one of my favourite American contemporary songwriters, but also a great source of musical recommendations; most recently, of course, with his terrific “Wah-Wah Cowboys” mixtape.
The breakthrough fourth album, reissued with a trove of demos...In 1986, REM’s elevation to umpty-million-selling ubiquity, dominant influence and stadium marquees appeared other than inevitable. The Georgia quartet had released, in breakneck succession, two critically adored albums (1983’s Murmur, 1984’s Reckoning) and a third (1985’s Fables Of The Reconstruction) which was a much more expansive but nonetheless nervy and flawed record.
