Railroad Therapy - Railroad Therapy

How would I describe this? Jazz? Fusion? Ambient? Or all of the above? Well if the answer is yes, you’ve come to the right place. From the outskirts of Indonesia comes a band called, Railroad Therapy. Their music is like a walk through this mystical cave filled with surreal beauty that the quartet have created with their own bare hands. And for me, I had no idea what to expect when I put my earphones on to come across this wonderful structure.

The band considers Adi Wijaya of I Know You Well Miss Clara on Keyboards, Dhimas Baruna on Bass Guitar, Jay Elizando on Sax, and Andar Prabowo on drums. The four of the band members are an amazing match, perfect combination, and a perfect team. And the four highlights that are on here, shows how much they work well together to create some strange mythical powers.

With the fusion-swing in toe, Monkey sees Adi, Andar, and Dhimas go into this walk across the pond by channeling an electronic take of Duke Ellington teaming up with not just Dizzy Gillepsie, but working with the Moving Pictures-era of Rush to create that intensive work out on the Night in Tunisia exercise. But then Adi lends Andar’s percussion a helping hand on Lost.

Here, he takes the listener on a walk towards those long hot summer afternoons into the forest by climbing upwards into these exotic locations that are beyond its true beauty while Andar goes into this drum rolling effect on Reflection. They walk us through some crazy time signatures from the channeling effects of Crimson and into a strange Gershwin concerto.

It is like a ramming speed sequence in the composition. Like walking through New York’s own Giant Endless Staircase nonstop, Adi almost plays it like a crazy mad scientist of a conductor as he lends the band members a chance to follow him in hot pursuit. And then you get to Nocturne which is Railroad Therapy’s tip of the hat to Robert Wyatt’s Rock Bottom.

At first when you hear Ary Janoe channeling the Wyatting structure, it goes into these ambient voyages of the sounds of airport announcements coming from the speakers to set up the Eno-sque effect that Adi brings to the table with some surreal atmospheres that is completely relaxed. For me, this was a real challenge listening to Railroad Therapy’s self-titled debut that came out last year.

It took me a few listens on whether I was going to accept it or not, and I liked it. It was beyond SimakDialog, I Know You Well Miss Clara, Dwiki Dharmawan, Dewa Budjana, and Ligro. But Railroad Therapy was worth the trip to explore from beginning, middle, and end. I can’t wait to see what the band will think of next in the roaring ‘20s. Because I can imagine this is only just the beginning.