28 December 2007

Shpongle - 2005 - Nothing Lasts... But Nothing Is Lost

Quality: 4.5 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.5 out 5


This is a damn fine album. Here Shpongle refines some of the atmospherics and world beat elements of Tales Of The Inexpressible and uses them to create a voyage more like their first album. The concept here is a series of dreams which equates to what I like to think of as some awesome audio paintings. Although there are 20 listed on the back cover, it's better to think of these as several long tracks, especially as there is no pause between many of the tracks.

Posfords guitars return here as do many of the female vocals and other worldbeat elements. But where the last album used these in a jarring manner that sometimes threatened to make these psychedelic explorers sound more like Deep Forest, everything here is fully integrated into the trance-inducing rhythmic structure. Of course Raja Ram is present to contribute some odd utterances and make sure things are properly twisted.

As far as I can tell, the first dream sequence is like a surreal trip to Rio, maybe a little fear and loathing during carnival. The second sequence makes me think of a flying dream, an out of body experience perhaps above the London skies. For the next sequence we have an encounter with ancient Mayan shamanic culture. The fourth sequence places images of a extremely technological future in my head; sort of a happier Blade Runner landscape. For the finale we get a sequel to "Divine Moments Of Truth," which sounds like another DMT trip to me, including a Ned Flanders sample from the psychedelic chili pepper episode of "The Simpsons."

Of course the beauty here is that everyone will probably come up with completely different images and interpretation. This is a concept as no concept, or perhaps an attempt to tap into the collective unconscious.

Shpongle's third album is a nice Roarshach Test. It's not enough to listen to this album passively. To really appreciate it properly you must imprint a bit of yourself into the music and listen actively and using your own imagination.

Buy Me:
Shpongle - 2005 - Nothing Lasts... But Nothing Is Lost

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://rapidshare.com/files/79544288/Nothing_Lasts..._But_Nothing_Is_Lost.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/79544519/Nothing_Lasts..._But_Nothing_Is_Lost.part2.rar

Unknown said...

I'm glad to see that you've updated your blog. I've downloaded many nice records from here. Cool blog.

Greetings from Chile!

PS: I was wondering.. do you have more material from the hollies in their psychedelic era? Butterfly has become one of my favourite albums ever.

Dr. Schluss said...

I have "For Certain Because," by the Hollies, but I wouldn't say it's particularly psych, although it's starting to get there.

Unknown said...

Can you upload it?
please.

Greetings

Anonymous said...

Amazing blog you've got here, thanks for introducing me to some great new sounds.

Anonymous said...

Hey Good Doctor! have you seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDZiq1eyPxY&feature=player_embedded

it's a doc called Liquid Crystal Vision and features Shpongle and Steve hillage. It's about psytrance and is pretty groovy! i think you will enjoy it

Anonymous said...

Great blog Thanks for posting