Esperanza Spalding – Songwrights Apothecary Lab (2xLP)

Songwrights Apothecary Lab features 12 pieces of music, created and recorded over the past several months in Esperanza Spalding's traveling laboratory, in collaboration with a host of musicians, researchers and practitioners. Each song was designed to have an intended effect for the listener, from grounding yourself in a moment of chaos and de-escalating interpersonal aggression to addressing the feelings of grief and loneliness brought on by the pandemic.

The Songwrights Apothecary Lab is a curated portal of new work that is growing out of Spalding's collaborative practice over the past years, exploring how songwriters might meaningfully incorporate therapeutic practices and knowledge into their process and production. The researchers and practitioners that partook in the labs specialize in fields ranging from neuroscience and music therapy to psychology and ethnomusicology.