The Avalanches | ||
| Allmusic Biography : Never mind digging in the crates -- the Avalanches probably just buy them whole, sight unseen, and find a way to bounce off each platter. Eventually morphing into a gang of six merrymakers bent on filtering their all-encompassing record collections through original instrumentation and a great deal of sampling, the Avalanches came from one of the most unlikely places to generate mind-bending dance music -- Australia -- and in 2000 released an album, Since I Left You, that became a timeless classic. Perfectly fitting with the bands range, the roots of the crew are in punk. Robbie Chater and Darren Seltmann were in a couple of short-lived outfits together, most notably the Swinging Monkey Cocks. Gordon McQuilten, Tony Diblasi, and Dexter Fabay eventually joined in on the mess, but they acquired turntables and set their sights on dance music of the sample-based variety, originally leaning on abstract hip-hop and naming themselves the Avalanches. Trifekta Records released the Rock City single in 1997, which soon brought the interest of Australian label Modular. With a long-term deal freshly inked, they released the seven-track El Producto EP and polished their outlandish live show, including dates with the Beastie Boys and Public Enemy. Rex issued the Undersea Community EP in 1998, which culled from the bands demo trove. Somewhere along the way, keyboardist James De La Cruz was added to the lineup. An extensive patch of time was spent building Since I Left You, a 60-minute melting pot of the bands collective influences that sounds like a postcard to anyone who has ever made a record. Released in their native land in late 2000 and preceded by the appetite-whetting Frontier Psychiatrist EP, it received a response from critics and the public that reflected the albums glowing nature. The group even had the blessing of Madonna, who allowed them to sample the bassline to "Holiday" -- the first time she okayed such a thing. Beggars Banquet offshoot XL issued the album in the U.K. in May of 2001; Sire released it in the U.S. in November of the same year. They followed it up with two singles taken from the album, "Since I Left You" and "Radio," that were filled with remixes by the likes of Stereolab, spiritual forefather Prince Paul, and Cornelius. In the years that followed, the albums reputation grew by leaps and bounds, whetting peoples appetite for a follow-up album. What they got instead was an intermittent stream of remixes over the next few years (for Belle and Sebastian, Manic Street Preachers, Franz Ferdinand, and others) until 2007, when the group seemed to disappear, leaving only the rumors of a new album that popped up every couple years. In truth, they had begun working on a new album that over time expanded to 40 songs. Nothing album-like was ever finished, though, and the Avalanches spent their time on other projects, like scoring a King Kong musical and working on an animated film that never saw the light of day. Finally, in 2016, the band (now down to a core of Robbie Chater and Tony Diblasi) announced that a new album would be coming later that year. To the delight of their long-suffering fans, Wildflower was indeed released in July and featured guest appearances by Mercury Revs Jonathan Donahue, MF Doom, Danny Brown, Toro y Moi, and Father John Misty, among others. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 4 Title: El Producto Released: 1997-12-08 Tracks: 7 Duration: 19:39 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 [untitled] (00:27) 2 Rolling High (02:58) 3 Rap Fever (04:13) 4 Rock City (03:43) 5 Under Inspection (03:44) 6 Run DNA (03:06) 7 [untitled] (01:25) |
 | Album: 2 of 4 Title: Since I Left You Released: 2000-11-27 Tracks: 18 Duration: 1:00:48 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Since I Left You (04:21) 2 Stay Another Season (02:20) 3 Radio (04:21) 4 Two Hearts in 3/4 Time (03:22) 5 Avalanche Rock (00:23) 6 Flight Tonight (03:52) 7 Close to You (03:56) 8 Diners Only (01:34) 9 A Different Feeling (04:23) 10 Electricity (03:29) 11 Tonight (02:20) 12 Pablos Cruise (00:53) 13 Frontier Psychiatrist (04:47) 14 Etoh (05:03) 15 Summer Crane (04:39) 16 Little Journey (01:36) 17 Live at Dominoes (05:38) 18 Extra Kings (03:45) |
| Since I Left You : Allmusic album Review : Endless summers for many youths dont consist of beaches and surfboards. Instead, theyre spent on blacktops and jungle gyms. More gritty and halfway between the curb and the hoop than anything celestial, the Avalanches remind you of a point in your life when you could blissfully hang upside down from monkey bars and just dangle. Like recklessly riding your BMX or skipping rope after downing a sugar-laced pitcher of lemonade, the un-mawkish Since I Left You thrives on making you feel youthful and mighty. Its Utopian grove stand bric-a-brac of grooves, beats, flutters, whistles, oohs-and-yeahs, and sundry animal noises can alternately sound familiar and fresh. Some origins can be immediately placed, and those that cant trigger an impulse that youve heard it somewhere before. Youre at least familiar with the tone as it relates to a long-lost feeling of childhood bliss -- whether its staring at a clear blue sky from a fresh-cut lawn or the first time you heard "Rock the Bells." If you want stifling touchstones, theyre there. Dunk the Beastie Boys of Pauls Boutique and Basement Jaxx into the fountain of youth; Sylvester meets Tweety; Mercury Rev links hands with the Bomb Squad for laps around the roller rink. Its no cloyed nostalgia trip, pieced together humbly by Aussies who are probably telling you the truth when they say they listen "to a little bit of everything." The unflinching mix offers plenty of tempo variety, knowing just when to change the pitch before hitting overkill. The second half features a subtle lull that builds up in time for "Live at Dominoes," possibly the strongest cut. Theres little doubt to Since I Left Yous status as one of the most intimate and emotional dance records that isnt vocal-based. Working on a mystical level, dont be too surprised if a future dig through the wallet unearths a membership card to the Summer Break Funk Association. | ||
 | Album: 3 of 4 Title: At Last Alone Released: 2002-01-22 Tracks: 9 Duration: 44:28 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Since I Left You (Cornelius remix) (05:37) 2 A Different Feeling (Ernest St. Laurent remix) (06:11) 3 Electricity (Dr. Rockits Dirty Kiss) (06:54) 4 Electricity (Harveys Night Club re-edit) (06:30) 5 Thank You Caroline (Andy Votel remix) (04:09) 6 Everyday (07:04) 7 Slow Walking (03:46) 8 Undersea Community (02:22) 9 Yamaha Superstar (01:52) |
 | Album: 4 of 4 Title: Wildflower Released: 2016-07-08 Tracks: 21 Duration: 59:23 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 The Leaves Were Falling (00:15) 2 Because I’m Me (04:12) 3 Frankie Sinatra (03:44) 4 Subways (03:10) 5 Going Home (02:06) 6 If I Was a Folkstar (04:33) 7 Colours (03:32) 8 Zap! (01:58) 9 The Noisy Eater (03:14) 10 Wildflower (01:14) 11 Harmony (03:48) 12 Live a Lifetime Love (02:30) 13 Park Music (00:54) 14 Livin’ Underwater (Is Somethin’ Wild) (01:56) 15 The Wozard of Iz (02:59) 16 Over the Turnstiles (00:41) 17 Sunshine (03:37) 18 Light Up (01:34) 19 Kaleidoscopic Lovers (03:55) 20 Stepkids (04:32) 21 Saturday Night Inside Out (04:59) |
| Wildflower : Allmusic album Review : In the 15-plus years since they released their masterpiece of sample-based electronica, Since I Left You, the Avalanches have been legendary ghosts kept alive by hopes, rumors, and memories of greatness compounded by a lack of anyone coming along to fill their shoes. With the release of 2016s Wildflower, the group stages a comeback that sadly falls short of expectations, but still ends up being a pretty good album anyway. In fact, if it hadnt been made by the Avalanches, it may even be a great album. The record is filled with their trademarks: heavy doses of summer sun so bright they seem to glisten more than shine, beats that seem to be constructed from bubblegum and rubber bands, samples that are witty and fit together like puzzle pieces. Kicking off with a track that sounds like part two of "Since I Left You," "Because Im Me" seems headed for the same patch of nirvana when it is suddenly derailed by some rapping from Camp Lo that grounds the heavenly sounds in some real-life grit. Not only is the rapping here a distraction, its the first of many guest appearances that serve to spoil what made Since I Left You so special. It had a timeless, immaculately constructed sound that was insular in the best way, made by a band of like-minded record geeks merrily toiling away over samplers and vinyl to create something brilliant. All the guest appearances on Wildflower not only wreck that feeling, but they are unnecessary. The Avalanches are masters at creating new melodies out of old records, fresh feelings out of lost snippets of sound; now they are kind of cheating by bringing in a bunch of people to do the heavy lifting for them -- and its kind of like cheating when they dont have to. Not only do the many rappers (Danny Brown, MF Doom, Biz Markie, and others) sound out of place, the plethora of indie rockers (like Toro y Moi, Father John Misty, and Jennifer Herrema) do too. They all seem slapped on after the songs were already done, adding very little to the sounds already there. Only the two tracks featuring Mercury Revs Jonathan Donahue ("Colours," "Kaleidoscope Lovers") work well since they sound like true collaborations. Skipping the songs with guest appearances leaves behind an album that sounds like fragments of a worthy follow-up in many ways, with smile-inducing tracks like "Subways," which borrows huge chunks of Chandras song of the same name, soundtracks for daydreams ("Sunshine"), and short sampledelic bits that end too quickly. Its a shame the group didnt expand on these self-contained songs more, leave off the pasted-in vocals that clutter things up and detract from the magic in the grooves, and build them into something more like Since I Left You. By focusing on outsiders instead of trusting their crate-digging genius, the Avalanches shortchanged themselves and ended up making the best psychedelic Chemical Brothers album ever instead of making another classic Avalanches album. | ||