Shpongle: Are You Shpongled? (3LP) [TWISTED]

Why you'll love it

This remastered 3LP set spreads the album across six sides with printed inner sleeves, so each long piece gets room to breathe. It sold more than 30,000 copies on an independent label and launched the duo's whole psychedelic downtempo world.

This edition

• 3LP set
• Remastered
• Printed inner sleeves
• Lyrics included

About the album

Most bands start with a single and work up to the epics. Shpongle went the other way round: Simon Posford, the producer behind Hallucinogen, teamed up with flautist Raja Ram, a veteran of the British psychedelic scene, and their very first album came out as seven long, winding pieces that flow into one another like a single journey.

"Shpongle Falls" and "Shpongle Spores" set the scene with Raja Ram's silver flute floating over Posford's synths and guitars. "Vapour Rumours" pulls in a sample from The Outer Limits, "Behind Closed Eyelids" borrows its title from an Aldous Huxley interview, and "Divine Moments Of Truth," with its throat-singing opening, became the duo's calling card. Posford's sound list includes rubber bands, a crisp packet and drips, which tells you something about how carefully he listened to the world around his Dorset studio.

It became the blueprint for a whole strand of psychedelic downtempo, and Eat Static later remixed the closer as "...And The Day Turned To Fright." The title asks a fair question. By the end of side F, most listeners find the answer is yes.

Also at Kops: more Shpongle on vinyl · browse Electronic

Tracklist

Listen

On Twisted (cat# TWSLP4RM21), a reissue of the 1998 album.