Photo courtesy of Hiss Golden Messenger

The past year has been unusually busy for Hiss Golden Messenger, the songwriting project of Durham’s M.C. Taylor. Last fall saw the release of the spiritual and mercurial folk-rock opus Poor Moon on Durham’s Paradise of Bachelors. In the spring, the record was reissued on CD by the venerable Tompkins Square imprint. In 2012, Taylor has contributed to a Michael Chapman tribute album, played Raleigh’s Hopscotch Music Festival with William Tyler and members of Megafaun and the Black Twig Pickers, and released a split 7-inch on which he covers and is covered by Elephant Micah. And while fans will still have to wait for the spring to hear HGM’s proper Poor Moon follow-up (titled Haw and due via Paradise of Bachelors), Taylor has one last treat to offer in 2012. On Nov. 16, the German imprint Jellyfant will release a limited-run LP version of Lord I Love the Rain, an expanded edition of a previously available EP-length download offered with pre-orders of Poor Moon. Two songs from the album are streaming below.

Taylor had this to day about the release:

Side A is all offcuts from around the time (before and after) of [2010's] Bad Debt; Side B is an assortment of instrumental tunes that were originally recorded for this imaginary film soundtrack, as well as covers of Michael Hurley’s “The Revenant” and Ronnie Lane’s “Tell Everyone.” We’re really proud of the record, and it should look really beautiful– we’ve modeled the packaging on the original Folkways paste-on sleeves, with liner notes by our pal (and incredible guitarist) Nathan Salsburg. The proper followup to Poor Moon will be out on Paradise of Bachelors in March, and there is another LP coming out in April, but I can’t talk too much about that one yet.