The Avalanches - Since I Left You

Label: XL
Catologue Number: XLCD138
Format: CD
Date: 2001
Style: Breakbeat / Electro / Mixology
Rating: 6/10
Reviewer: Sidney James

A lot of hype has been surrounded the Australian DJ collective The Avalanches. The majority of the music press has sung their praises, insisting they are the best thing since sliced bread, etc… Normally I’m very suspicious of so much praise being heaped on a band. Although ‘Since I left you’ has been out for several months I had decided to give it a miss. However I recently heard The Avalanches new single ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’ and was mightily impressed by it’s cool cut ups of B-movie samples and funky beats. So impressed with the single I head down to my local record emporium and purchased ’Since I left you’.

A criticism of many bands debut releases is that you can normally hear the record that influenced the band in their music. The thing with The Avalanches is that they are literally their record collection. You see ‘Since I Left you’ is completed constructed from snippets, samples and breaks from other people’s records. This maybe the story with the majority of dance acts now, but The Avalanches take it one step further. Just one look at the sleeve of the CD and you notice that the credits for all the tracks take up one half of the sleeve (and this is in relatively small type). Personally I have no problems with sampling as many great tracks have been heavily based around samples, (Bomb The Bass - Beat Dis, Meat Beat Manifesto’s Boney M sampling Radio Babylon and The Future Sound of London’s Radio Babylon sampling Papua New Guinea to name a few).

So why does something make me feel suspicious about ‘Since I left you’?. Well for starters rather than being an album of individual tracks ‘Since I left you’ is more of a mix CD. Tracks blend and bleed into each other with their being no obvious gaps in the album. With these tracks being made up of samples of other people’s tracks as, it beggars the question over whether ’Sine I left you’ can actually be considered as true album or rather a fantastically cool DJ Mix set.

One thing for sure The Avalanches are masters of the turntable, they match to mix soul, funk, hip hop, easy listening, film samples, street sounds, animal sounds and Madonna’s Holiday into one super smooth blend. The nearest comparisons are probably DJ Shadow (but without the dark edge) Coldcut and Kid Koala (but without the deliberate disjointedness and scratching). Other times “Since I left you’ recalls the polished 80’s style funk of Daft Punk and Les Rythmes Digitales. In fact it’s extremely hard to put a finger on The Avalanches which can only be a good thing .

I still have other reservations about certain aspects of the album though. Sometimes the source material is a bit to syrupy. This is particularly true with some of the easy listening excerpts, which seem twee and cheesy (if such a mix is possible). However these moments are equally matched by moments of deep down and dirty funkiness (Flight tonight the aforementioned Frontier Psychiatrist).

’Since I left you’ is a record that demonstrates the outstanding skills of The Avalanches. The mixing and constructing of the tracks is exquisite. Disparate elements are pulled in and out of the mix and it’s often hard to believe that that these sounds actually work together. ’Since I left you’ also proves that The Avalanches have an extremely large and varied record collection, again the sampling credits indicated this. We get samples of tracks by Jimmy Webb, The Osmonds, Boney M (again) and De La Soul to name a few. The great thing if you know the originals then ‘Since I left you’ becomes a game of musical train spotting. This does not mean however that it is just for the music snobs out there. If anything ‘Since I left you’ works best if you just go with the flow and let yourself get dragged into the mix.

‘Since I left you’ rates as one of the best mix album to be released to in the last few years but for The Avalanches to claim it’s the tracks as their own is a tad cheeky in my opinion. ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’ is the coolest cut from the album and I would recommend that for those still unsure about The Avalanches. It would now be interesting to see what The Avalanches can produce without the heavy use of source material. One thing is for sure a lot of other artists and record labels are going to make a nice little earner from ‘Since I left you’.