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Taxi Taxi

Maps and Legends

(Self-released; US: 24 Apr 2007; UK: Unavailable)

Taxi Taxi is Terence Bernardo—a guy who can’t stop playing producer. When he’s not recording for himself, he’s sound designing for theater and television, in addition to producing for other groups. Of course, three years after its initial inception, Bernardo finally gets to see Maps and Legends—Taxi Taxi’s debut—come into light. Is it a groundbreaking LP that will redefine the course of indie-pop for the next five years? No … but it’s still pretty fun. Often, he rides by on songs that are merely good—not great. The accordion-driven “Nakano” and the moody “X Marks the Spot” are both pretty good, but nothing you’ll remember a year from now. Yet when Bernardo focuses in on something, he is able to pull out some real gems. The title track is your high school piano teacher on a bottle full of uppers, rewiring Richard Cheese bombast into infectious pop confetti. The minor key acoustic ballad “Anna” is also a pitch-perfect lament, using animal imagery to depict a relationship in sharp decline (with a few acid zingers thrown in for fun, particularly with the line “your enemies change / but your friends won’t last”). These flashes of inspiration hint at much better things to come, but it’s Bernardo’s focus on a particular idea that will eventually earn him the title of truly great instead of merely good.

Rating:

Evan Sawdey began contributing to PopMatters in late 2005 after contributing for years to his college newspaper The Knox Student. Evan became the Associate Interviews Editor for PopMatters in the summer of 2008, and then the full Interviews Editor a year after that. Since joining, Evan's work has been quoted/featured in a wide array of publications including SLUG Magazine, The Metro (U.K.), the Gulf Times, Soundvenue Magazine (Denmark), and multiple national newspapers. Evan has been a guest on WNYC's Soundcheck (an NPR affiliate), was the Executive Producer for the Good With Words: A Tribute to Benjamin Durdle album (available for free at GoodWithWordsAlbum.com), and wrote the liner notes for the 2011 re-release of Andre Cymone's hit 1985 album A.C. (Big Break Records) and the 2012 re-releases of the JoBoxers' 1983 debut album Like Gangbusters, 'Til Tuesday's 1985 debut Voices Carry, and Plastic Bertrand's 1978 album AN 1 (all Hot Shot Records). He is a current member of The Recording Academy and resides in Chicago, Illinois. You can follow him @SawdEye should you be so inclined.


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