Shpongle - Nothing Lasts... But Nothing Is Lost

[Jikkenteki]

Shpongle - Nothing Lasts... But Nothing Is Lost

Twisted Records TWSCD28, Solstice Music SOLMC053 2005

1 Botanical Dimensions (4:37)

2 Outer Shpongolia (2:33)

3 Levitation Nation (3:40)

4 Periscopes of Consciousness (1:54)

5 Schmaltz Herring (2:21)

6 Nothing Lasts (4:28)

7 Schnitzl'd in the Negev (4:18)

8 ...But Nothing is Lost (4:39)

9 When Shall I Be Free? (4:37)

10 The Stamen of the Shaman (4:11)

11 Circuits of the Imagination (3:12)

12 Linguistic Mystic (1:36)

13 Mentalism (2:54)

14 Invocation (2:40)

15 Molecular Superstructure (4:47)

16 Turn Up the Silence (3:22)

17 Exhalation (2:16)

18 Connoisseur of Hallucination (3:31)

19 The Nebbish Route (3:36)

20 Falling Awake (1:50)

 

So here it is; the newest, and supposedly last, Shpongle album. Given the buzz on various forums over the last few months, to say that this album has been highly anticipated is probably an understatement. As usual, fans in Japan (including myself) got the chance to purchase this release first through Solstice Music’s release of it here.

 

It is probably the curse of Shpongle that this album will be compared to the two before it when it really should be viewed on its own merits. Shpongle, like all classic artists, are basically damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If they cover too much new ground, some people will loudly complain that they have somehow “abandoned their roots”, while if they don’t change too much others will complain just as loudly that they are simply “putting out the same old thing to cash in on their name”. Personally none of this concerns me as long as I like it, and to get that out of the way, let me say that I do indeed love it. Like the albums before it, Nothing Lasts takes and pushes the Shpongle envelope to new levels while still remaining Shpongle.

 

As probably everyone knows, this CD is more one long piece of music that just happens to be broken up on the CD as 20 individual parts. Sonically this album seems a bit closer in spirit to the first album to my ears, but with the inclusion of a lot more non-electronic instruments ala the second album. These elements are then mixed up, with some new flavorings thrown in, and then brought to nice nice boil leaving us with an album that is, as to be expected, unique.

 

As always, the production is top notch, although Nothing Lasts sounds a little looser, rawer and wilder than previous albums. Track by track descriptions here are worthless here, but it’s all there. The flute solos, the ethereal vocals, the clean guitar bits and the mad effects works are there. Levitation Nation and Schmaltz Herring gives us our Shpongle salsa fix. Nothing Lasts, Schnitzl’ed In The Negev and …But Nothing Is Lost give us some great odd time workouts. When Shall I Be Free? has a sort of Eastern vibe with lots of guitars. Sprinklings of psychedelic drum and bass are all over. Molecular Superstructure and Turn Up The Silence actually get things pumping pretty seriously, while The Nebbish Route is bound to ruffle a few feathers with a short section featuring some crunchy guitar work (personally I think it fits the flow).The Stamen Of The Shaman’s main melodies even come from a brass section.

 

As I said previously, this album seems a bit wilder to me that the previous ones. At many points it seems like it’s almost pushing the limits of what it can handle and is about to come crashing down upon itself, but it never does. Like all of Shpongle’s music, undoubtedly this will be an album that some people will get right away, others will have to spend some time with, and some others will probably never get into. However this listener is happy to report that all his expectations of having a Shpongle musical journey were met. Hands down the best album of the year for me.

[emmmgeee]

I have had a listen, and have heard it live as well when Simon last in Oz... The 3rd album is the clincher and it is with great disappointment I have heard this album. The format is similiar to the 2nd album, the sound is similiar to the 1st. What is lacking IMO is the arrangement/songwriting - it is old ground covered here with mucking about with new technology - it is like a movie with good effects without the substance of story. There are some moments where I think "WOW" but you only need to think of the 1st two albums to come to the aforementioned perspective. Despite the disappointment, I still wish I had his talent.

[tDR_shpongled]

and have heard it live as well when Simon last in Oz...

268257[/snapback]

I didnt realise some of those tracks were from Shpongle 3 until the other day!

 

FIRST time through the album:

I skipped the first 3 tracks (beija flor) and went on straight to the fourth.

I didnt quite understand the concept behind most of the tracks, the composition just seemed to lead me to nowhere. By the time it had passed halfway through I started to get fustrated... Did Simon and Raja fail us?

 

SECOND time:

Things slowly started to make sense, I had my first smile... I was liking it

 

THIRD time:

I laughed at one time, this shit is good!

 

and so on I love it!!

 

little complaints here and there due to sounds that are a bit tacky

+ I thought at times we need a moment of peace with a touch of ambience Eg. the last 1.5minutes of 'Hoorey' from Tales album

 

OH and my biggest dissapointment has to be the absence of the great silver flute... barely any tracks had it.. and the ones that did, it always came in at the wrong time and the taste was too jazzy

 

My fav Raja flute line: "hoorey" "monster hit"

 

 

Thanks Posford

[Lemmiwinks]

Hands down the best album of the year for me.

but the year is not even half-way through...

[whirlpool]

The 3rd album is the clincher and it is with great disappointment I have heard this album. The format is similiar to the 2nd album, the sound is similiar to the 1st. What is lacking IMO is the arrangement/songwriting - it is old ground covered here with mucking about with new technology - it is like a movie with good effects without the substance of story. There are some moments where I think "WOW" but you only need to think of the 1st two albums to come to the aforementioned perspective. Despite the disappointment, I still wish I had his talent.

 

268257[/snapback]

 

 

I feel exactely the same way. It is much of the same. Kind of a re-make of the first two albums. The stuttering effect is highly overused. The production is excellent, but the story is missing.

 

 

.

[Jikkenteki]

but the year is not even half-way through... 

268946[/snapback]

Ah, I meant to say "best of the year so far" but somehow my brain to finger connection seemed to crap out there. Does that a lot actually.

[tDR_shpongled]

The stuttering effect is highly overused.

269015[/snapback]

It's only used in the beija flor tracks..... I think its underused in this album

[Sawfly]

Second listen and sounds kinda boring...

[seraph]

I had mixed feelings about this album. It is surely total mixture of first and second album. I like the parts where it more sounds like the first but there are few very IMMATURE moments for Simon...like Beija Flor, ending and very ending of the disc...WTF...That sounds like shitty copy of new Infected Mushroom...Blah...But, third track and foruth are FENOMENAL, one of the best Shpongle ever...He managed to create same atmosphere as on the first one, making it a journey, trippy and beautiful...I say that this has 7/10 from me for now...

[Naiman]

First when i started to listen to the album i thought it sounded good, but not sure if it would be as good as the previous two albums.. I am not one of the people who had problems with the 2nd album, both are different from each other and i can't say which one i like more.. Anyway some day's later i listened to the album for the first time in a row and not in small doses it clicked for me, what previously sounded only good sounded now f*BEEP*cking brilliant!! I actually laughed out loud a little bit cause it was so good. Last time any album did this for me was the the previous album..

 

This album is full of melodies, but i think they are not as "in your face" (wrong word, don't know any better) as in for example the 2nd album. I think this is a very varying album, the soundscapes can sound the same if you listen to it in a hurry, but the moods in tracks differ much.

Also i love that this is mixed together and not done as separate tracks, because this is a journey that sounds best when listened from the beginning to the end nonstop. ok..argh..blaaaa. i don't know how to write proper reviews so i stop here.

 

There's good psy.. and then there is Shpongle. This is the only perfect trilogy i know of.

 

10/10

[seraph]

After second, very thorough listen, I also tripped out on the whole. I do find few bits cheesy : LEVITATION NATION, FALLING AWAKE but the rest especially NOTHING LASTS...BUT NOTHING IS LOST is amazing, one of the best Shpongle tracks I've heard. Fifth and sixth track are the best after Nothing Lasts...Whole album has very variable concept. Freestyle at its best, even slightly better than their second one...Now it went up to 9/10 definitely.

[Lemmiwinks]

Ah yes, the final Shpongle album. First of all there is one thing that caught my attention: when seeing the tracklist you might think that Shpongle outdid themselves and made a double album... that isn't the case... then you wonder how could they squeeze in so many different tracks on one CD. Here's how: instead of having "long" tracks that take you on a journey, each "normal" track is actually split up into 2-3 smaller tracks (kindof like KLF - Chill Out which was at first one big 30 minute track and then was re-released as an album where in fact it was the same track but split up). This has advantages and disatvantages: the main strong point is that now it is possible to skip directly to the 2-3 mintues you like in the track instead of listening through the whole 7-8 mintues to get there. The disatvantage is that for me, a good ambient track is supposed to take you on a long journey, it's supposed to have a lot of different parts in it, otherwise, well, it just sounds like a pop song with a catchy melody played in a loop for 3 minutes... chill-out is chill-out and pop is pop. Of course, you can listen to the whole CD like one big 67 minute track but then you feel that parts have different "individualities", it's not like, say, Juno's Luci-ana which was clearly intended to be a 60+ minute track in the first place. So basically, your best try is to guess which small tracks correspond to a "big" track and regroup them by yourself...

 

Anyway, technicalities put aside, this is one pretty damn good album. Like others said before me, 2 things strike me music-wise: it is more uptempo than "usual" Shpongle (but no it's no full-on, rest assured ) and Raja's magic flute is missing almost completely!! I thought that Raja's flute WAS part of what made Shpongle what it was... ah well... Also, since Dorset Perception and Beija Floor were basically the 2 most commercially succesfull tracks by Shpongle you can imagine that they make once again massive use of salsa... you also get the trademark stuttering and the Terence McKenna samples as well as Michele Adamson's voice ran through a vocoder. Well all these elements have become trademarks of the "Shpongle sound"... but they also have become a bit (too) stereotypical for the group IMO.

Oh and since I mentioned Beija Floor, don't be surprised if you recognized it on the CD although it isn't in the tracklist. Actually the first 3 tracks are nothing else than Beija Floor split up into smaller tracks. I must say it feels a bit like a scam to make people believe that there are only new tracks when in fact there are 3 disguised under a different name...

 

My highlight of the album is definatley track 9 When Shall I Be Free? (which is part of a "bigger track" with track 10). There's a REALLY catchy guitar melody, I must admit that I've listened to this album for about a week now and about 80% of the playtime was dedicated to this track

 

Conclusion Bottom line: this is Shpongle... if you liked the first 2 albums you'll more than surely like this one as well Yes, fans will find that some "Shponlge formulas" (salsa crossovers, vocoders, stuttering, McKenna samples...) are used one too often but hey, if the formulas weren't there, it wouldn't be Shpongle any more, would it? And there still are enough creative ideas in there to make this sound like something new and not just a remake of the first 2 albums. Personally I enjoyed this very much although I could've done with a bit less uptemo "dancy" salsa and more of Raja's magical flute on top of downtepo tracks. And no, in spite of their HUGE success in the "normal" trance world with Beija Floor I don't find they became sell-outs. Sure, a bit more commercial, but definatley not sell-outs... 9/10

[channelthirteen]

After second, very thorough listen, I also tripped out on the whole. I do find few bits cheesy : LEVITATION NATION, FALLING AWAKE but the rest especially NOTHING LASTS...BUT NOTHING IS LOST is amazing, one of the best Shpongle tracks I've heard. Fifth and sixth track are the best after Nothing Lasts...Whole album has very variable concept. Freestyle at its best, even slightly better than their second one...Now it went up to 9/10 definitely.

269392[/snapback]

Same thing happened to me. First listen, I was a little critical. The next day I put it on and jumped in bed. For me, psy-trance has always been about the "TRANCE". There is only one way to tell you are in a trance too - when you snap out of it. Within the first twenty minutes, Simon managed to trip me out 6 times. That is something that everyone is forgetting. It's about the trip. Listening to Shpongle takes you to a different place, we are now used to it because it is Simon's place. But it still is way far far away.

 

Thumbs up! Good times!

[unikos]

i ve listened some times now and i cant say it has improved... the cheese is still there, the ambient feeling that made are you s.? special is missing, so its still 7/10 for me, and 7/10 is the same like 0.5/10 if we re talking about shponlge that i totaly love...

this doesnt mean that overall its a good cd... perhaps if i hadnt listened millions of times to the previous gems i would like this more

something odd:

for some reason i seem to lose focus while listening through.. still i cant remember what the tracks sound like and when i re-listen the same thing happens..

[Cinos]

I've listened to this a couple of times - and I quite like it. There's one track not really to my taste, not bad but not good, and that is Conniseur of Hallucinations (sp?) and thus I can't give this more than 9/10.

 

But Shpongle DIDN'T make a bad track during their trilogy! Ha!

[Indred Cold]

After several listens now I must say that this album is growing on me. I agree it has elements of the 1st 2 albums but with a touch more electronic feeling. This album was not quite what I was expecting but I still think it's pretty good. Not as good as the 1st but better than the 2nd. 8/10

[Kiph T. Elephant]

I was sort of disapointed with the bit depth of this release. Why do they always use the same cookie cutter bit depth? What happened to originality and experimentation? I give it 1/10.

 

High frequencys: 8/10 These were high, but not quite high enough to really reach higher levels of consciousness. It's sounds good if you're in the right mood sipping herbal tea in tie dye clothing and meditating about tofu.

 

Mid frequncys: 9/10 These sort of remind me of a trip to the park and feeding squirrels until being kidnapped by aliens. Killah! PsybuddhaALienBom!

 

Low frequencys: N/A I live in a tall building so I couldn't hear these. My downstairs neighbour did comment something about them, so I think he's low enough. I should probably go listen to this at his place until I comment.

 

The sampling rate was quite predictable although well excecuted. I won't rate it because it's depends on what you're into. Very good if you're into this style.

 

 

 

Music: 7/10 Ruined by overuse of the usual Fx. Irritating.

 

 

Overall album 6/10

[Lemmiwinks]

What happened to originality and experimentation?

dude they go as far as as crossblending classical music with trance in Schnitzl'd in the Negev and manage to transform a track with pure indian influences into salsa (tracks 9 and 10)... I'd say the experimentation and originality is pretty much there. Of course, it will impress you less now that you're already used to their style but still...

[Kiph T. Elephant]

dude they go as far as as crossblending classical music with trance in Schnitzl'd in the Negev and manage to transform a track with pure indian influences into salsa (tracks 9 and 10)... I'd say the experimentation and originality is pretty much there. Of course, it will impress you less now that you're already used to their style but still...

280123[/snapback]

I guess you have a better ear for these things than I do. To me it sounded like the usual 16 bit CD audio like all the other psy releases (except vinyl).

[Kontakt]

Not going to repeat what many of you said, so I'll simply say this;

 

This new album is un-fuckin-believable ! It's a grandiose journey of immense proportions, intellegently crafted into a phenomenal soundscape, dripping with every bit of brilliance I expected from Sphongle ... and more ! Love it !!

 

Thanks to Simon, Raja & Twisted.

 

I guess you have a better ear for these things than I do. To me it sounded like the usual 16 bit CD audio like all the other psy releases (except vinyl).

280124[/snapback]

I'll just point and laugh ...

[Kiph T. Elephant]

.

I'll just point and laugh ...

280321[/snapback]

So what you're saying is that your cd isn't 16 bit?

 

 

In addition to the bit depth, frequency thing I guess I should also comment on the music a little more.

 

This Cd got old really fast. This is just the same old same old with the same gated vocals and effects tricks. People seem to be blinded by the fact that this is a Shpongle release to hear how truly mediocre this is. Boring boring boring. Sample CD driven fx masturbation.

[tDR_shpongled]

Sample CD driven fx masturbation.

280327[/snapback]

But how right those samples need to be selected is the important part - and what use you put it to.

 

I disagree with some of the samples he's used for this album.

 

My fav tracks so far..

 

2 - why are people so against it? I think its very shpongly

4 - very good vocals

6 - 6-8 is the '..day turns to night' of S3

7 - best on the whole album - and one of the best shpongle moments

this track made me laugh many times - unbeleivalby good

14 - brilliant vocals by H.O, I have no idea what your saying but thank you

9 - except for how the volcals come into play (repeating and fading in - cheap)

10 - nice & smooth saxaphone

17 - the only good flute work by raja on this entire album oh and I love the terrence sample that is in this

 

worst tracks:

11 - boring smelly clubby chanting sample - it ruins it

13 - very very bad - why go funky raja? oh no the smelly sample is back!

16 - i cant stand the party/rave sample at the start - its HORRIBLE

 

---

I just hope with more listning I will grow to love the tracks that I hate.

This album shares some of the brightest moments, and the dullest in the entire series.

I just hope it truely isnt the very 'last' we hear from Shpongle.

[craig800]

i'd say this is pretty on par with tales. I would have liked to hear a Nothing Lasts equivalent of 'Around The World In a Tea Daze' but what can you do?

 

the only thing im unhappy about is the 20 tracks, gets a bit annoying haveing a gap every 3 mins or so on my mp3 player.

 

Favs: 4,5,6,7,8,16,17,18

[whirlpool]

This Cd got old really fast. This is just the same old same old with the same gated vocals and effects tricks. People seem to be blinded by the fact that this is a Shpongle release to hear how truly mediocre this is. Boring boring boring. Sample CD driven fx masturbation.

 

280327[/snapback]

 

Amen!

 

 

.

[Dajek]

I don't know.. I have listened this album for many many times now, and I still think it's the best album I've heard... Tracks 4-10 are the core of this album for me, sounding truly ingenious.