Irreplaceable – The Music Therapy Experiment (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

I must have said as much this time last year when I was writing about the astute and exquisite Art and Science album, but The Music Therapy Experiment, as the name suggests, understands that music is more than mere entertainment. Even the simplest of songs can, perhaps unintentionally, act as moments of calm and catharsis, inspiration and education, helping the person find a place of well-beingness and awakening. And if, as Noel Cowards put it, it is “strange how potent cheap music is,” then music that sets out intentionally to connect with the head, the heart, and perhaps even the soul, can be exciting.

Irreplaceable is just such a track. A piece of music which is both rewarding and beautifully accessible, built from music designed to run much deeper than mere momentary entertainment. A blend of liquid jazz-rock, chilled West Coast-infused states of musical grace, cascading rhythms and clever and coiling, smart and spiralling guitar lines. Bass lines pulse and purr, beats punctuate perfectly and fill with finesse and the overall piece is ornate and awesome.

It is hard to think of the music as coming from an academic pace, so smooth and soulful, sophisticated and sensual as it is, but this is not music just made for the sake of it. The patterns and themes, the recurring riffs and motifs, the fantastic flights of fancy, the contrasting tightly woven platforms that the more free-form licks dance across, are all very definitely chosen as much for their feeling, their emotive qualities, their effect and influence as for anything as mundane as just to build a good tune.

Did I say good tune? Make that great tune, as Irreplaceable is far more seductive and smart than it might first appear. Each play proves to be more rewarding than the last, each successive spin reveals hidden depths, and with each re-listen you will find more of the underlying effects of the music being absorbed by some sonic osmosis rather than anything as crass or common as lyrics, hooks or the usual musical gimmicks which have become standard contemporary music far.

If you find that most music being made today is bereft of depth and meaning, if it seems shallow and leaves you feeling short-changed, you should explore this sort of music. No, not this sort of music, The Music Therapy Experiment is specifically the music that you should be exploring.