Shpongle is a psychedelic electronic music project from England that formed in 1996. The group includes Hallucinogen and Raja Ram. The duo are considered to be one of the progenitors of the psybient genre — a genre combining world music with psychedelic trance and ambient. Their musical style combines traditional music from all over the world and vocals with contemporary western synthesizer-based psychedelic music. When asked to describe Shpongle's music, Posford has responded that it is "like nothing you've ever heard before."
Raja Ram is an Australian-born musician and the owner of the United Kingdom record label Tip World. He was a founding member of the psychedelic rock band Quintessence in the late 1960s and early 1970s, playing at the first two Glastonbury Fayres in 1970 and 1971. He later found success in the psychedelic trance scene and continues to headline at large events worldwide.
Martin Glover, better known by his stage name Youth, is a British record producer and musician, best known as a founding member and bassist of the rock band Killing Joke. He is also a member of the Fireman, along with Paul McCartney.
Younger Brother is an electronic duo formed in 2003 by Simon Posford and Benji Vaughan. Their debut album A Flock of Bleeps was released in 2003, followed by The Last Days of Gravity in 2007 and Vaccine in 2011.
Eat Static is an electronic music project from Frome, Somerset, England formed in 1989 by Merv Pepler and Joie Hinton. Hinton left the group in February 2008 after 18 years to spend more time with his family.
Twisted is the debut studio album by Hallucinogen, released on 16 October 1995 on Dragonfly Records.
Ott is a British record producer and musician who has worked with Sinéad O'Connor, Embrace, the Orb, and Brian Eno, and has achieved recognition since 2002 for his own psychedelic dub tracks and his collaborations with Simon Posford. He has released two albums on Twisted Records: Blumenkraft (2003), Skylon (2008), and four albums on Ottsonic: Mir (2011), Fairchildren (2015), Heads (2022) and Hiraeth (2024).
Benjamin Vaughan, better known as Benji Vaughan, is a British psychedelic trance musician and tech entrepreneur. He has released music under many names, of which most well known is his solo project, Prometheus, and his collaboration with Twisted Records label colleague, Simon Posford, under the moniker Younger Brother. His music is characterized by distinct basslines, high production quality, intense thematic development and unique or alternative approaches to the psytrance genre. He frequently combines diatonic melodic content with metallic or "glitchy" percussive polyphonic elements to form thick contrapuntal tapestries of sound. Although much of his music sounds like it was composed using equipment at the forefront of technology, it is not uncommon for him to use equipment now considered antique, such as the 1971 Korg micro synth that he used for portions of the second album, Corridor of Mirrors.
Are You Shpongled? is the first of six albums released by Shpongle. Are You Shpongled? sold in excess of 30,000 copies. A remastered version of Are You Shpongled? was released on 30 June 2017, along with a limited edition super-deluxe triple vinyl set.
Tales of the Inexpressible is Shpongle's second album, released in 2001. Simon Posford and Raja Ram hone and expand the style introduced on their debut album, Are You Shpongled?. Raja Ram plays Spanish and East Asian instruments along with the flute, and Simon Posford plays classical guitar as well as synthesizing and sampling.
Oliver John Wisdom was a British Goa and psy trance musician, and clothing producer, who lived in London. From the 1990s he recorded under the name Space Tribe.
Nothing Lasts... But Nothing is Lost is a 2005 album by Shpongle. It is the project's third and was announced as their last, though that plan later changed. Like the previous two albums, it features many live musicians and vocalists in combination with computer-generated sounds and spoken-word samples. Stylistically the album can be described as a fusion of world music, intelligent dance music, and psychedelic trance. It is dedicated in memory of author and psychedelic researcher Terence McKenna, whose voice and ideas are used throughout the album. The tracks flow together continuously without any break.
The Goa Mix is a two-hour DJ mix by British musician and DJ Paul Oakenfold. It was originally broadcast on BBC Radio 1 as an Essential Mix on 18 December 1994 after the producer of the show, Eddie Gordon, chose Oakenfold to produce an eclectic DJ mix for the show which featured a burgeoning variation of electronic styles, having begun the previous year. Oakenfold had, at this point, developed his own unique Goa trance sound, influenced by his time at hippy gatherings on beaches in Goa, and employed it heavily into the mix, which also made pioneering use of film score samples. Oakenfold used the mix as an experiment in which he tried to fuse electronic music, especially trance music, with film score music, and then to overlay the result with vocal parts, samples and additional production. The mix was split into two parts, later referred to as the Silver Mix and the Gold Mix respectively. Reflecting the Goa influence, the album title did not evolve beyond its simplistic working name.
A Flock of Bleeps is the debut studio album by the music group Younger Brother. It is a collaborative psybient/psychill project between English psytrance producers Simon Posford and Benji Vaughan (Prometheus).
Nicholas Barber, better known by the stage name Doof, is best known as a British, London-based psychedelic trance musician.
A Voyage into Trance is a DJ mix album by British producer and DJ Paul Oakenfold. The album was originally released in 1995 and was soon out of print, but its popularity meant it was re-released in March 2001 with an alternative surround sound mix paired with immersive visuals. Allmusic said the album included an "immaculately assembled collection of dance tracks" and rated the album four out of five stars.
The Last Days of Gravity is Younger Brother's second album. It is a collaborative downtempo psychedelic project between English psytrance Producers Simon Posford and Benji Vaughan.
Ineffable Mysteries from Shpongleland is the fourth studio album by Shpongle released on 2 November 2009. The album's track list was released on 12 August via Twisted Records (UK)'s website. Songs from the album began to trickle to the public in live form, being played at many of Shpongle's 2009 concerts. Previews of the album were made available through Twisted Music's official audio player. The album was ranked at #7 on Sputnik's Best Of 2009 list.
Kenneth James Gibson is a musician, record producer, composer, singer, songwriter and a founding member of Bell Gardens, Furry Things, Eight Frozen Modules, and [a]pendics.shuffle.
Psydub is a fusion genre of electronic music that has its roots in psychedelic trance, ambient and dub music. Incorporated dub elements are melodic basslines, deep reggae roots and producing techniques like dynamically adding extensive echo, reverb, panoramic delay, and occasional dubbing of vocal or instrumental snippets from the original version or other works. An incorporated ambient element is an emphasis on tone and atmosphere. Incorporated psytrance elements are low-bass frequencies and hypnotic melodies and the use of samples. Those samples mostly contain references to drugs, parapsychology, extraterrestrial life, existentialism, out of body experiences, dreams, science, time travel, spirituality and similar mysterious or unconventional topics. Psydub is also highly influenced by the music of India.
