Glass Taxi and the delicate strength of "Following You" (Official Video)

 

"I've been watching you / you're just passing through..."

The mercurial, slow ascensions of "Following You" by Glass Taxi, the avant indie rock / dream pop duo of Melissa Burgess and Matt Norris, feels like it is constructed of delicate material, strong but fragile, beautiful but functional, if that makes any sense. Built on frameworks of sounds that feel self aware there is also a precarious aura here, a sense of subversion or flammability while things are burning close by. 

Against tactile, textured bass lines and a machine beat, Melissa's vocal aesthetic, nuanced and measured, painfully beautiful, you can feel both melancholia and wide eyed awe in her words. As layers interweave more supporting emotional context, the vocal melodies get sadder as they go along. At certain points as the beat gets heavier, the emotional cores feel darker and the aforementioned ascensions pitch down. Before you sink in the song's quicksand those beautiful melodies and synths save you just in time. 

The atmospheres here are so moving. Hope you are not alone lest you get lost in it all. 

Liner notes reveal:

[Most people who discover their purpose feel as though they encountered something, either real or abstract, that led them along the way. But if you happened upon that link to your destiny — would you recognize it? Would you follow it?

“Following you" is about acknowledging such an encounter, and making the decision to pursue it. It’s about the moment you see your destiny glimmering elusively ahead — the moment you recognize that something that compels your soul is slipping through a doorway in front of you.

You could say this is a song to self. After all, is destiny calling you from beyond, or does your destiny come from within?]

"Following You" is elevated by the Official Video featuring an amazing dance performance and choreography by Marie Louise Hertog.  

-Robb Donker Curtius 

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM 

https://www.instagram.com/glasstaxi/

https://www.tiktok.com/@glasstaxi

https://glasstaxi.bandcamp.com/album/time-sukkin-ep

https://www.facebook.com/glasstaxi


Songwriting, for us, has been inspired by time living & traveling abroad. Our music listening went from a deliberate pressing of “play” to a matter of complete happenstance — catching songs in transport vans, shops, and on the street. Factors of language and catchiness come to bear in how pop music sticks, and unmoored from our usual contexts we began to delight in the randomness of transmission; this playlist built from complete chance. Each of the songs we release this year will ultimately play through that filter: Eschewing a dominant sound that impacts every track, for something more curated & exploratory. Something that translates in the immediate.

“We want to build kind of a Wunderkammer of songs and sounds. A Wunderkammer is a cabinet for curiosities, a place to collect otherwise unrelated fascinations, a catalog of wonders. The point is simply to follow our most intense musical obsessions ruthlessly.”

Friends since high school, Matt Norris and Melissa Burgess started sending songs back and forth during 2020. Melissa was a portrait painter in Atlanta when she began collaborating with Matt long-distance, pulling from her love of songwriting and art, as well as her experience as a classically-trained pianist. Matt was a fixture in the Atlanta music scene, playing in groups across genres and opening for bands as varied as Deerhunter, Mugison, and, randomly, Mumford & Sons. In 2015 he sold all his possessions (except musical instruments) and left the States, living in Berlin, Krakow, Taichung, and London, before settling in Poznan, Poland



Glass Taxi, Poland, indie rock / dream pop project, Melissa Burgess and Matt Norris, surreal shapes, moving orchestrations, "Following You" (Official Video),