Is there such a thing as holistic music? Is all music holistic? Is it something that the creator decides or is it up to the listener to designate it as such? Is it just another meaningless journalistic handle used by broken down scribblers looking for a neat way to get into a review? Okay, I’m going to take a stand and say that Bob Gaulke makes holistic music and Transportation is the perfect calling card for this probably made up genre.
Musically it wanders from understated rock to jazz infusions, soulful grooves to slick R&B, it mixes heart with humour, the profound with the profane, the dark with the light and there is hardly a subject that it doesn’t explore from Turkmenistan porn to the finer points of grammar, from creative angst to marxist revenge scenarios. Holistic enough for you?
The ever changing nature of the record is pushed even further with a couple of female guest vocal turns from Peri Mason and Vivian Benford on Another Rat and Rich respectively which add a element of uptown jazz bar sophistication to the proceedings. Irony is bluesy and breezy, On Foot seems to echo the dark urban vibes of Lou Reed and album opener Bad Writer is a textured and layered personal take on the very art of creativity.
It’s a great album, one with the ability to switch and change, to be musically fluid but which never leaves the listener behind. Some artists like to show how clever they are by confusing the audience and demanding that they play catch up as the music subverts expectation and heads down unexpected pathways just for the hell of it. Some artists just write great songs and leave it at that. Bob Gaulke is definitely the latter.
