‘Are You Shpongled’ took us into the heart of the rainforest, ‘Tales of the Inexpressible’ beamed us back to one of those otherworldly lunar eclipse festivals, ‘Nothing Lasts - Nothings Lost’ opened digital doors to interspecies communication between man and machine.
Now after letting ‘Ineffable Mysteries of Shpongleland’ sink in for two years and listening beyond comparing it with those hard sphongle-acts to follow, this one really stands out as the most cinematic album of Shpongle. It’s almost geographical as a soundscape, taking us to so many sometimes profan but strange places (looking for a cup of coffee in india…) and sometimes epic but familiar scenes on this huge but tiny planet earth.
The shimmering guitars, the bouncy 7/8 grooves, earcandy production, the electronic wizardry, the dreamlike strings are all still there, but this time there is more; many long recordings, intimate audio scenarios and Raja Ram defies the limits of language more than ever, expressing things that not even Terry Pratchet could put to paper…
