Shpongle would quickly become one of the most vital electronic acts in the world, and certainly one of the best, but Are You Shpongled?, their 1998 debut, only hints at that future in short measures. While it's a perfectly good album in its own terms, a lot of this doesn't bear more than a passing resemblence to the two meisterworks that would follow. More ambient, measured, and freeform, it is almost by definition less enjoyable, but it's also a refreshingly different experience if you're in the mood. It's the Shpongle album most obviously geared at drug users, the one with most in common with new age music, and the one that is arguably the most interesting, if the one most people will listen to least. Then again, there are those who say that this is the only true Shpongle album, and that they immediately 'sold out' before recording anything else, so what do I know?
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