Shpongle — Psybient & Psytrance DJ DuoShpongle
Shpongle is the British electronic duo of Simon Posford and Raja Ram, formed in Chobham, Surrey, in 1996. Additional contributors have included Michele Adamson and Pete Callard. The project is widely credited as a progenitor of psybient, with a sound that also reaches into psytrance and psydub. Its first track, Vapour Rumours, appeared on a TIP Records compilation in 1996, followed by the debut album Are You Shpongled?
on Twisted Records in 1998. A first live show took place at the Solstice Music Festival in Motosu Highland, Japan, in July 2001. Shpongle returned to Japan for a New Year's Eve 2003 show at Tokyo Bay NK Hall alongside 1200 Micrograms and Hallucinogen, and played London's Roundhouse in 2008. Releases have also appeared through Kinetic/BMG Records in the United States.
The duo's work is known for its use of vocal samples concerned with consciousness and altered states, including a Terence McKenna DMT sample. Posford has described the project's sound as like nothing listeners have heard before. In live and recorded form, Shpongle has used richly layered psychedelic detail to distinguish its work from a conventional DJ set, connecting immersive sound design with key festival, hall and London venue appearances.