Describing the Durham based Hiss Golden Messenger is like trying to grasp a forgotten word: It's always on the tip of your tongue, but hard to speak. Songwriter and bandleader M.C. Taylor's music is at once familiar, yet impossible to categorize: Elements from the American songbook the steady, churning acoustic guitar and mandolin, the gospel emotion, the eerie steel guitar tracings, the bobbing and weaving organ and electric piano provide the bedrock for Taylor's existential ruminations about parenthood, joy, hope, and loneliness.