Nothing Lasts ... But Nothing is Lost is a 2005 album by Shpongle

Shpongle

Shpongle is an English psychedelic downtempo/psybient music project formed in 1996. The group includes Simon Posford and Raja Ram . Their musical style combines eastern ethnic instruments and vocals with contemporary western synthesizer-based psychedelic music...

. It is the project's third and was announced as their last studio album, though the duo has since released a fourth. 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

World music

World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...

, intelligent dance music

Intelligent dance music

Intelligent dance music is a term that describes an electronic music genre that emerged in the early 1990s. The genre is influenced by a wide range of musical styles particularly electronic dance music such as Detroit Techno...

, and psychedelic trance

Psychedelic trance

Psychedelic trance, psytrance or just psy is a form of electronic music characterized by hypnotic arrangements of synthetic rhythms and complex layered melodies created by high tempo riffs. It appeared in the mainstream in 1995 as with reporting of the trend of Goa trance. The genre offers variety...

. It is dedicated to the memory of author and psychedelic

Psychedelic

The term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...

 researcher Terence McKenna

Terence McKenna

Terence Kemp McKenna was an Irish-American philosopher, psychonaut, researcher, teacher, lecturer and writer on many subjects, such as human consciousness, language, psychedelic drugs, the evolution of civilizations, the origin and end of the universe, alchemy, and extraterrestrial beings.-Early...

, whose voice and ideas are used throughout the album. The tracks flow together continuously without any break.

Track listing

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. "Shnitzled 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 Shamen" – 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 Hallucinations" – 3:31
19. "The Nebbish Route" – 3:36
20. "Falling Awake" – 1:50

According to Simon Posford, the album actually has 8 songs divided into 20 tracks. Each part symbolizes a phase in the dream sequence.

Samples and allusions

• The first track off the album, "Botanical Dimensions", samples from the Richard Linklater
  Richard Linklater
  -Early life:Linklater was born in Houston, Texas. He studied at Sam Houston State University and left midway through his stint in college to work on an off-shore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. While working on the rig he read a lot of literature, but on land he developed a love of film through...
  
   film Waking Life
  Waking Life
  Waking Life is an American animated film , directed by Richard Linklater and released in 2001. The entire film was shot using digital video and then a team of artists using computers drew stylized lines and colors over each frame.The film focuses on the nature of dreams, consciousness, and...
  
  .
• "The Nebbish Route" song samples Ned Flanders
  Ned Flanders
  Nedward "Ned" Flanders, Jr. is a recurring fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Harry Shearer, and first appeared in the series premiere episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". He is the next door neighbor to the Simpson family and is generally...
  
   from The Simpsons
  The Simpsons
  The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
  
  episode "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer)
  El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer)
  "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer '", also known as The Mysterious Voyage of Our Homer, is the ninth episode of the eighth season of The Simpsons, which originally aired January 5, 1997...
  
  ".
• "Levitation Nation" samples a 2003 song by the Brazilian samba school
  Samba school
  A samba school is a club or dancing school. They practice and often perform in huge square-compounds devoted to practicing and exhibiting samba, an African-Brazilian dance. The schools are traditionally associated with a particular neighborhood, often shanty towns...
  
   Beija-Flor de Nilópolis.
• The title for "Nothing Lasts" comes from the philosophical poetry of William Blake
  William Blake
  William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
  
  
• "Circuits of the Imagination" also contains a sample of the "bionic" sound effect from The Six Million Dollar Man
  The Six Million Dollar Man
  The Six Million Dollar Man is an American television series about a former astronaut with bionic implants working for the OSI...
  
  .