683 The Avalanches - Since I Left You (2000)

 683 The Avalanches - Since I Left You (2000)

Studio Album - Sampledelia



About the Act:

The Avalanches are Australian. They are probably better described as a "music project" than a band. They create music using lots of samples, although live, they use vocalists and some musicians. Their first album, Since I Left You took them by surprise by being successful.

About the Album:

This was their first album and is entirely composed of samples from a large collection of vinyl records. There are an estimated 900 different samples used (one of the members claims that it is more like 3500). It was created by the two main members at the time.

My History with this Album:

None.

Review:

So you know about samples, presumably, the use of snippets of other people's music to enhance your own, or to create the sounds of instruments. Hip-hop is rife with this practice and actually so is modern pop. Some music creation artists do this quite a lot, people like Fat Boy Slim, The Chemical Brothers and Moby. Meet The Avalanches, they take this to extremes.

This album is one great big collection of samples, mostly from things that I don't know, although Holiday by Madonna makes a couple of appearances. There are bits of disco and 50s and 60s things here, and some sung snatches and spoken snatches. If there is one word for it, it is "intricate". There is a lot to dig into, and a lot to hear, but it's worth talking about the overall effect here, which generally approaches the dancy end of this kind of thing, repeating samples, beats, snatches, all adding up to an evolving musical soundscape with slowly evolving textures.  At times it's somewhat funky. As a whole, I found it to be a nice experience, I quite like this sort of samply thing when it is done well, and this is done very well. Everything contributes to the overall flow and feeling, and is carefully and artfully put together and tweaked.

The aesthetic is light and airy, there is good use of sounds like strings and flutes, and the beats are less dominant than in some sample-electronica. It's a happy sound in general, as if the joy of creating this stuff has infected them. There is some wry humour at play at times, especially in Frontier Psychiatrist, which is a great track.  As is often the case with stuff like this, it slides from one track to another almost seamlessly to take you on a journey into sound.

I'm going to go out on a bit of a limb here, I quite like stuff like this, like Bentley Rhythm Ace and Banco da Gaia and I think this may be the finest example of sample electronica that I have sampled, sorry heard. It's dense, intricate, carefully done, and joyful, and I liked it a lot. It's not as sweeping and grand as "Ambient" but it has a lot to offer.

8/10


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/0CvU96jYCiNP4c9u8dWHoI?highlight=spotify:track:2DgFCys3XMrWZDngu1CrRy

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLP59Fs_hB7C29nGA-cCbcVsCkbYprt4qa

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Since_I_Left_You



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