Released in the UK in April 2001, Since I Left You is to date the only full-length release by Australian plunderphonics collective The Avalanches. The album gained a significant amount of attention at the time of release, with its two major singles, ‘Since I Left You’ and ’Frontier Psychiatrist’ charting well and receiving a heavy amount of airplay on BBC Radio 1. The album was also well received critically, at one point receiving a stupendously good review score from Pitchfork of 9.5. Since the initial release of Since I Left You, The Avalanches have fallen into relative obscurity, although significant rumours are beginning to circulate that their long awaited sophomore album may be set for release as soon as late 2011.
Since I Left You was a number of years in the making, and the album release was delayed many times. This is perhaps understandable due to nature of The Avalanches music – Since I Left You was reputedly made up of over 3,500 samples from records, movie soundtracks and television episodes. Additionally, legal issues over copyright are always a lurking problem when dealing with sample based music, although interestingly The Avalanches were one of the first acts to be granted sample rights by Madonna, whose iconic ‘Holiday’ bass-line was sampled for the track ‘Stay Another Season’.
Since I Left You is essentially made up of soundscapes and congruous washes of sound. Tracks blend seamlessly into each other, with the vibe and focus of the music changing subtly with each song as the album progresses. Many tracks, including the title track are gentle and soft, with a nebulous, vague air to them. Slightly lo-fi, calmer tracks have had their edges buffed and feathered into in a heady ambient mix, wrapping the listener in a comfortable sonic blanket. There are upbeat tracks too though, with deep, complex and sometimes pounding rhythms. There is definite energy in tracks like ‘Close to You’, which clearly originates from the mix of funk, r&b and hip-hop samples, which fits perfectly within this new context.
The major, continuous element through the entire album, however, is the wealth of texture. Each track is riddled with almost innumerable parts and a huge variety of timbres, as well as the lo-fi ambience and vinyl crackles that are generally present. Each timbre and technique sampled is interesting, from chanson vocals to spoken word clips the entire body of work is like a sonic homage to popular culture, swirling and pulsating around the listener’s sonic field.
Every sample is well selected however, and collectively the album is not simply a mess of sounds, mashed together into indiscernible nonsense. Since I Left You works as music, it is not just an experiment – there are cohesive melodies and solid beats amongst the haze of sound. This album perfectly examples how wonderfully subtle sample based music can be. Never heavy-handed or arrogant, Since I Left You truly is a master class in sample-based music.
See this at The Guardian online at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/album/28438e4f-3710-459f-a332-a1eba9dd1f26?commentpage=last#end-of-comments
