Garth Steel Klippert – Music For Taxicabs

contributor: Noah Andrade, June 16, 2010

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Garth Steel Klippert’s “Music for Taxicabs” is aptly named
beyond its possible wink and nudge to Brian Eno’s “Music for
Airports”. It’s the very soundtrack that I would imagine was
aimlessly composing itself in the background of his mind as the
city passed him by during his own profession as a taxi driver in
San Francisco.

However, the end recorded result is anything but aimless. Opening
with the layered arpeggios of Port of Entry (A Boy Was Born), you
almost get the sense that the tone is being set for a “Philip
Glass farting-about-on-a-Moog homage”. However, these notions are
quickly swept out the door as Taxicabs progresses. It becomes a
complete landscape of one’s musical mind, born out of the
meditative and sometimes voyeuristic experience of driving
strangers around town.

The “Creaky Gun Shoes” two-parter and “Purge 6″ are life on the
rails style jams, punctuated with field samples and radio
chatter. The former is carried by a meandering steel guitar that
just begs for a swig of whiskey, while the other flirts with
electro against the backdrop of frogs bellowing their nocturnal
sexy time mating calls. Both are decidedly organic pieces that
feel deeply extemporaneous. This isn’t to say that they aren’t
meticulously calculated. His use of ambiance, and his careful
placement of the vocal interludes show careful examination of
how instrumentation and inconsequential background noise can
often relate musically.

In contrast to these are “Howl, My Favorite Sound” and “The
Murko”, which makes me suspect that vaudeville and film-noir met
in the back of a yellow one drunken evening, and let loose to
create a screaming mutant child. “Howl” is the more focused of
the two, set against a driving groove, while “Murko” throws out
the conventions and waves its avante-garde flag high. Both pieces
make you feel ill at ease in the best way possible; as if you
were trying to solve some sort of profound mystery while under
the influence of [insert vice here].

And this brings us to the album’s punctuating pieces, the three
of which are the glue that make this collage of sound consistent.
They make up the opening (“Port of Entry”), the middle (“One
Walk”), and the end (“Point of Exit”). If were to compare these
to the others, they would be the daylight moments.
However, to say they feel more spirited and care free than the
other more nocturnal pieces would be unfair. No, they are a haze
of this-and-that being condensed into one ponderous waking dream.
While the melodies are decidedly more playful, they keep an
underlying sense of urgency that sets the tone for the songs to follow.

One could say that this album is a trinity of three distinct
personalities. Three distinct sounds. However the measured tone
and track placement are what separates “Music For Taxicabs”
from other similar efforts. There’s an awareness throughout this
experience that cannot be ignored. It makes sense of a blurred
landscape, slowed down just enough to make the details come
through. But it never commits totally to the listener, as it seems
very much an introverted album. Though it is never closed off too much
for the listener to feel close, if only for a moment. Not to beat
a dead horse, but let’s just say you’re definitely a passenger
for this cab ride, and it’s well worth the fare.