Tales Of The Inexpressible [Import]

These two guys, when they get together, do some incredible things. Their blend of eastern instruments and other ethnic sounds with the melodies and samples that they've chosen is outstanding. Their ability to change the tempo of the tracks from one minute to the next is unparalleled. In one album, even in particular tracks, they manage to take you on a journey all across the globe delving into some of the world's different cultures. This album will blow you away. It's as you can tell by now, one of my all time favorites, and Shpongle is one of my most revered bands of all time. No joke. Enjoy.

The first track, "Dorset Perception" lifts the listener up with a soaring, lovely melody that I really like, a great song, but the album hits one of its peaks with the next track, "Star Shpongled Banner" with its mesmerizing flow, divine vocals, and breathtakingly lovely air to it. Now that is a track.

This album hits a few less-than-spectacular notes in my opinion with tracks 4-6, but it's hard to top the majesty and transcendance of the first two songs anyway. But we're right back at the peak of musical innovation and enjoyment again with "Once Upon The Sea of Blissful Awareness" and "Around the World in a Tea Daze." "Once Upon..." sounds like you might expect it to - a shimmeringly lovely and fragile tune with jaw-dropping vocals that does indeed feel like you're floating upon a sea of blissful awareness." "Around the World..." is so varied, a shifting opus of the forms of electronica, that it's difficult to praise it properly here. Amazingly enough, it never feels haphazard though.

So all in all, this is a great album, perhaps I haven't done it justice, but oh well. If this is your first time listening to Shpongle I would personally recommend the even better "Are You Shpongled?" because it has it less of the world music feel and samples to it than this album, and I don't care as highly for some world music forays as some people do. I do like the world music flourishes Juno Reactor uses, but not so much in other groups' experimentations. If that type of thing doesn't bother you or you like it, then disregard the above statement.

One last note - Don't pay an arm and a leg for this CD. If you look around you can find it available fairly easily for around $16-17 which includes shipping. This is a good album, but there's no reason to be ripped off by scam artists. The same goes for "Are You Shpongled?", there's some guy on here selling a copy for $100, that's insane when a little work online will net you a copy for $20-25 with a minimum of hassle and a fourth of the price.