The Avalanches

gee, tough crowd.
running red lights is excellent, and wildflower exceeded expectations set by frankie sinatra / colors / subways (which i also love).

SILY was lovingly looking at a postcard from a trip.
wildflower was lovingly looking at a bunch of hazy summer photos from your childhood, BoC without creepiness.
i’m afraid this album will be lovingly looking at a photograph of somebody who’s gone, and i hope i’m wrong.

I remember when I first heard SILY, I was so bowled over by the sheer quantity of awesome samples/hooks/breakbeats... just being relentlessly slammed with killer cut after killer cut, good times. Minus frontier psychiatrist, fuck that shit

I’m not speaking about the music, just the album cover which looks unpleasant to me. I lliked the previous album covers a lot, it seems like they’re not interested in having a visual aesthetic of their own, and that’s fine, but this one is a downgrade for me. I guess the spectograph thing is cool if a bit of an outdated novelty but I find it ugly as the main album cover. Maybe the back-cover or a single release idk.

I didn’t care much for Red Lights but I like it miles better than Frankie Sinatra which is the only song I despised from Wildflower. I actually think the album will be good,

Wildflower sucked. Everything since then has also sucked.

I like this cover and concept, but I expect it to also suck.

I did like Wildflower. Well, most of it... probably a 3/5 for me. There’s probably a better album somewhere in there if they edit themselves and focus some of their ideas better but I think the lack of focus is sort of the appeal with them.

Yeah it was OK, agree with 3/5. Never feel an urge to listen to it.
Just realizing the "hit" singles from both it and SILY are horrendous.

yeah not feeling the cover (and the concept is a bit too whimsical but not in a good way, and already used by richard d james). even the initial art for "we will always love you" would've been better.

still going to reserve judgement on the new album though, they do have a tendency to release singles not indicative of the album. i would most definitely not recommend judging SILY by SILY and frontier psychiatrist. same for wildflower, frankie sinatra and colours don't really represent it. because i'm me / if i was a folkstar would've been more obvious choices.

frankie is fine, a concept track that works, unlike noisy eater, which is too much, and completely breaks the flow.

I really like Wildflower and "Noisy Eater" is one of my favorite tracks from it

Cover is lovely

Agree that because I’m me/folkstar would’ve been more adequate as singles.

Not sure what I’d choose for SILY singles instead. Maybe Electricity or Two Hearts. Tbh Frontier Psychiatrist works as a single if only for the music video. The song itself is not good, but when paired with the video it’s great. If Frontier Psychiatrist wasn’t a single with a music video I’d rather it was removed from the album.

I like the cover but I'm not expecting much from the album

"We Will Always Love You" really just makes me want to turn it off a minute in and throw on "Hammond Song" instead

Ann Druyan was Sagan's wife when he passed. Been rewatching Cosmos in lockdown and she and Sagan have been sources of positivity and inspiration.

Re: the new album, the singles have done absolutely nothing for me here and I'm actually not looking forward to it. Running Red Lights was by far and away the worst thing they've done, and makes Frankie Sinatra sound nostalgic and amazing. If the rest of the album is as generic, boring and annoying as that song, I'm writing these guys off.

Ultimately, I feel they're a sample driven band, and the fewer they use the more they lose the excitement and atmosphere that made them unique.

Copyright and the modern expense of sample clearing has seriously ruined wholesale subgenres of music.

* runs usual macro that posts "except they were better before they became a sample driven band" *

i donno, avalanches work best for me when i’m not listening to individual samples and thinking how well they used them. that’s why frontier and noise eater are more obvious concept tracks, and i can appreciate them as such, but i just don’t like them as tracks proper. i’m sure frontier was a “lol a dexter sample” taken to conclusion. frankie works because it works as an actual track.

surprised by such a strong reaction to running red lights tbh. it’s a nice track even if it doesn’t touch you. too constructed? seems showin? or something else?

It doesn't sound like Avalanches. It sounds like generic indie pop. The chorus is grating. It has no personality? The band has always had an amazing blissed out nostalgic vibe that simultaneously sounded fresh, present and energetic. Obviously the sampling is a source of this nostalgia.

Yes, it's nice but I don't listen to this band for nice. At their peak they are emotionally transcendent. I can listen to nice in an elevator.

all very fair points! i'd just sooner apply them to something like harmony.

i don't think the sampling is the only source for the nostalgic vibe (and i don't think you're saying it?). some of their best tracks transcend that too, or maybe just make samples part of the whole better. take away samples that aren't part of the arrangement itself, and frontier will sound silly. do it to stepkids and it'll still sound great. (and i keep thinking about how BoC use samples for that hazy childhood memories vibe vs how the avalanches do it).

The band has always had an amazing blissed out nostalgic vibe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY3Mfbwupvg

Running Red Lights isn't that bad, surely. Way better than the execrable Frankie Sinatra.

Having said that, I'm not expecting another Since I Left You or anything remotely comparable to it from these guys. Subways was by far the best thing on the last album.

Wildflower was fucking great, so I’m stoked for the new album. “Subways,” “If I Was a Folkstar,” “Harmony,” all great druggy trippy out-there stuff.

They put this up a couple of days ago. I think the operative word is . . . pleasant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdvxzc7FLow&ab_channel=TheAvalanches

yeah, not feeling either of the new tracks (music makes me high / take care in your dreaming) right now. autotune!? really?

on the positive side, discovered they remixed chemical brothers out of control last year and it’s pretty great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DYL2pQX2rk

Complaining about auto-tune? really?

it didn't magically become good over the year yanno

you're right. i should've been more specific: a generic use of autotune in an avalanches track? really?

donno if this is autotune but i love this track and how it's used in this track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XmHET3U2Ug

I quite like Music Makes Me High - has a bit of a SILY era vibe about it

It's not bad, and I suspect we'd like it a bit more if it was by some new act we'd never heard of – but let's face it, anything the Avalanches do from here on in will always be in the vast shadow of Since I Left You.

I *really* like the music of "Take Care in Your Dreaming" and a lot of the textures and samples from the other tracks ("Wherever You May Go" is great too), but there's too much deference to their increasingly recognizable guests - it's better when they rely more on just their own sounds and use the contributions sample grist. I loved 'Wildflower' (except for Frankie Sinatra), but I listened to their '16 Essential mix more at the time (and I'm hoping for another to go along with this). I love all the art for the single covers. Unfortunately the album cover has an 80s horror vibe that the reasoning for it can't get beyond.

..'as' sample grist..

new track posted. it's.. nice i guess?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxC0nhAKwXs

I have a feeling this is an album drop by a band I (used to?) love that I'm likely going to simply just pass on. Hurts to type this, but man have these guys lost their mojo. Absolutely nothing they've released in advance has felt inspiring or original at all, and one or two of the singles have sounded downright annoying. This song okay but if I want this vibe I'm putting on DJ Koze or something instead that does it far, far, far better.

If they'd just been allowed to release the downbeat followup to SILY that the "original lineup" completed a few years afterward, a different version of the band releasing polite dinner-party "chill vibes for studying" music rn would probably sit a lot better.

I would kill for that

the downbeat followup to SILY that the "original lineup" completed a few years afterward

wait WHAT? I would love to know more about this.

They still had their mojo for Wildflower! I really do enjoy that record, Frankie Sinatra and all

I kind of agree with the sentiment that whatever this album is trying to do - based on the singles so far - Dj Koze can and has done it better.

I guess I need to listen to more DJ Koze then.

wait WHAT? I would love to know more about this.

The Avalanches

I want to hear it

this is the first thing they've done I've not actively disliked since the debut album

In the meantime, fill the wait for the second album with a deluxe 10th-anniversary re-release of the first album, with a bonus disc featuring "new reworks from the likes of El Guincho, MF Doom, Canyons, Black Dice, Jackson and his Computer Band." Information regarding super-deluxe package versions and the release date will be released on Facebook, sometime.

They've lost the master for this Stereolab remix of Since I Left You, so someone in the office has ripped it from vinyl for Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/modularpeople/the-avalanches-since-i-left-you-stereolab-remix

― undeɹrated ærosm?th b∞tlegs I have pwned (sic), Friday, July 8, 2011 1:13 PM (nine years ago)

BTW, note that with no release date yet set, the "deluxe 10th-anniversary re-release" is likely to come out more than 11 years after the initial release - at time of announcement, it's already 8 months late.

― undeɹrated ærosm?th b∞tlegs I have pwned (sic), Friday, July 8, 2011 3:13 PM (nine years ago)

Since I Left You double LP re-release on blue vinyl out now, 10th-anniversary deluxe reissue now running two years late, new mix up here

― ┗|∵|┓ (sic), Monday, April 23, 2012 12:27 PM (eight years ago)

As of today we're exactly four weeks from the 20th anniversary of Since I Left You, and they still haven't finalised the release date for the 10th anniversary deluxe reissue, or announced details of the super-deluxe package versions.

been allowed to release the downbeat followup to SILY that the "original lineup" completed a few years afterward, a different version of the band releasing polite dinner-party "chill vibes for studying" music rn would probably sit a lot better.

Turns out I may have been OTM in this thread: Like the unreleased album was supposedly a mellow, thematic record, the new one is totally a concept album about space.

Here's a lockdown video interview with Robbie and Tony for internet blog "NME"

And an audio interview with Robbie for BBC6, on the presenter's own instagram account

Plus a mission statement of their aims for the album

The Avalanches on the cosmic, musical experience

~ The Avalanches are a critically-acclaimed experimental Australian music group formed in the late ‘90s. Here they discuss their fascination with collecting and using historic music samples and sound effects in their recording process, and the infinite beauty of all of history’s music travelling out into space. ~

We’re writing an album related to space. It began in a strange way: we became curious about the way that an old record is like a time capsule of someone's life. What was going on in that person's life when they were making that record? This moment is frozen in time. Maybe they were in love or they were going through a breakup or their child had just been born, and they poured it all out into this song. Then it gets played over decades and every time someone listens to it, it gets more crackly. So everybody along the way is adding to the sound of it and we will find it and sample it. The musician who made it may have passed away a long time ago, but it's like they're living on through the recording.

We started reading about radio transmissions and every transmission that had been broadcast ever from planet earth. We considered how every song that's ever been played on the radio is still floating out there in space, and all the voices of their seniors who may have passed away, like Elvis or John Lennon or whoever, are floating out there in the cosmos. It's a choir of people's spirits floating around out there. We found that to be such a beautiful idea.

The cosmic experience is almost about exploring the infinite and the inner at the same time; it’s about really thinking about, “who are we really?” Without wanting to sound like old hippies, vibration is everything, right? It's sound waves and light waves. It's all just information hitting our bodies. And then we interpret it and give it all this meaning.

Our new album is full of hidden messages. There's the message in the lyrics. But then underneath the music is every sound, every crackle and every static blast. There are recordings of black holes that make up the drum beats. There are static recordings from mediums who are contacting people who have died, they recorded their voices and those are in the songs as well. There are messages that, when you play them in a spectrograph, make pictures hidden in the songs.

We've collected so many fragments of voices from well-known recordings and un-well-known recordings. And we’ve combined them together to make choirs that sing behind the music, all these fragments of voices. To me they're like souls, and each little note is layered with meaning and connection from the past in someone's life. It's like voices from the past, all singing through this record and out into the world again today.

That's just the most beautiful concept to us. And it's just connection. The human voice has always been how we've tried to connect with something greater than ourselves.

I think we're coming full circle now to why we were so interested in sending the message out to space, because then the journey just continues and continues. I find the whole thing very humbling because we become a very, very small part of the cycle. It's like the cycle of life.

I often think about how when we’re performing in another country like Japan and there's like 40,000 people there and they sing along to one of the songs. But the vocal in the song is from a record I've found from the '60s. We’re just a very, very small part of that whole energy flow. And it's incredible just to watch it all flow and bubble around you. It’s very humbling.

The message of our music is love and connection. When we're connected with that, life and possibilities feel infinite and anything feels possible. Music is so powerful in changing the way you feel. When you wake up in the morning it can really bring you back to your humanness and to what is beautiful in life. So in that sense, we are in the cosmos already. It doesn't have to be what's out there. We are already out there. We've just got to tap into it. So, hopefully, the music is a message of love.

that entire passage reminds me a lot of guys like BT who write insane overwrought essays about what turns out to be pretty fucking normal dance music

still, I did like Wildflower a lot so I'll grab this

They've been fairly busy (wildly, by their standards) this year apart from working on the new album, too.


Back in May, they did an hour-long mix with or for Jamie XX on his NTS radio show:
https://www.mixcloud.com/NTSRadio/jamie-xx-the-avalanches-15th-may-2020/

In mid-August, Sydney Oasis tribute act rock band DMA's digitally released a remix of Criminal, from their album of the previous month.

https://i.imgur.com/vRSswnk.jpg

Here's video of the band performing it, and here's audio of the Avalanches version.

For Record Store Day, the Chemical Brothers released a 12-inch megamix of their Surrender album by the Avs.

https://i.imgur.com/zLDTi3B.jpg

A youtube rip can be heard here.

In September, six months into Melbourne's get-arrested-if-you-leave-your-house lockdown, they streamed a live mix on youtube from their respective living rooms.

https://i.imgur.com/wss24B1.png

The audio was posted afterward on their soundcloud, and you can also get a 2.7gb video rip from here.

and ex-lanche James De La Cruz appeared on an Adelaide radio show to play some of his favourite Australian songs. The "listen again" link wouldn't work for me, but there's a mostly-legible list of the songs picked.

i really have no idea what i'm going to think of this record, out of the released tracks so far "take care of your dreaming" was really nice but a lot of it has also been completely nothing-y or actively awful "running red lights"

the track times at least seems to indicate they might be going for a more of a continuous mix than wildflower since it's full of interludes

six months into Melbourne's get-arrested-if-you-leave-your-house lockdown

Haha. You always seemed like such a stickler for accuracy, sic...

:)

As it happens, I'm not the only person who noticed that it's the 20th anniversary.

Robbie, on Facebook a couple of weeks ago, recalled his musical inspiration for the song, and putting it together with Dexter. There's a very cool 1-minute video of the original video and vinyl samples, which can be viewed without an account, plus this text:

Frontier Psychiatrist was released 20 years ago this month. So funny to reflect that such a strange song became a top 20 single.

I had the opening Enoch Light sample hanging around for years, was always trying to turn it into a banging hip hop tune. Of course, it never went anywhere. I wasn't being myself.

Finding the dumb ass Wayne and Shuster comedy album changed everything. I heard the skit about a cowboy who hated his horse and a lightbulb went off in my head.

Ahh! I’ll combine it with the dramatic Enoch Light record, and make a surreal scratch / comedy song.

This is the essence of creativity to me. Joining the dots between unrelated elements & showing people the hidden connections.

Prince Paul was a hero of mine, he taught me humor is just as valuable as heartache or joy in music. Those weird 70's Beach Boys records about vegetables and sleep also encouraged me to make something lysergic & fun.

I had this huge collection of spoken word & comedy albums, golf instruction albums, bizarre Christian records. I was obsessed with the Christian label WORD out of Waco, Texas. The guys were always giving me a hard time like, why are you collecting all that junk! Once the music was complete and the hook in place, Dexter came over and we spent a couple a days goofing around and going through the dialogue albums, hanging in my bedroom studio. I remember the records spread out all across my bed and floor and us climbing out the window so we wouldn’t disturb the process.

I loved adding the horse squeal sample to complete the song, hiring old western movies on VHS, getting stoned and sampling away. The horse was a nod to DJ Muggs & Cypress Hill ; I read they had done a similar thing. It became a trademark sound on the album and I used it again on ‘Stay Another Season’ & ‘Radio’ too.

Looking back I am reminded of how simple things can be when making your art. All you really need is a bunch of junkstore records and your imagination.

20 years later, we are still broke ass musicians, we don’t own homes, (or even cars!) ..but we are happy, and fulfilled, and I wouldn't trade this life for anything - robbie

The month before that, it topped a radio station poll of The Best Australian Debut Albums, and Robbie was interviewed about it: https://www.abc.net.au/doublej/music-reads/features/the-avalanches-since-i-left-you-robbie-chater/12673428

Snippets:

Since I Left You was a moment where we realised 'Let's just take out all of that vocal stuff and the live instrumentation and try make something that feels like it's beamed in from another time, or another universe or something. We'll express ourselves just with what we find on the records'." ...

"From beginning to end, [it took] maybe just 18 months," Chater says.

"I remember, it was summer in Melbourne, and we were all living in share houses. Everybody was popping around to each other's houses and there was just music going all the time. It was very happy and carefree."

Chater's bedroom was ground zero for the album, and it's the place his mind returns to when he hears it.

"It was the front room of a terrace share house in Melbourne," he recalls. "I remember looking out, there were a couple of big gum trees on the nature strip.

"I was 22/23, so I would be up all night working on it, and I can still picture the view of the sun coming up over the buildings across the road, not knowing we've been up all night working on it."

"It would take forever on the clunky old computer we made the record on, but I would get a certain amount of way through the record, burn songs onto a CD Walkman, and go for a walk around Melbourne in the summer and listen to it.

"I'd take mental notes about what could be better and that kind of thing.

"It's such a funny time reflecting now. There wasn't YouTube – now we sample a lot from YouTube – I don't think I even had email or anything like that."

The first album is also now available on Tidal, which includes detailed credits for each track. Darren and Robbie are credited for writing on every track*, sometimes with the other members and various sampled folks, but despite the BobbyDazzler and "Darren Seltmann And The Viking Bobby C" credits on the CD, Tidal's data has Robbie producing half the album solo, Darren doing one track solo, and the rest being Robbie + various members of the band

Since I Left You: Robbie
Stay Another Season: Robbie
Radio: Robbie
Two Hearts In 3/4 Time: all four
Avalanche Rock: Robbie
Flight Tonight: Robbie & Darren
Close To You: Robbie & Gordon
Diners Only: Robbie
A Different Feeling Robbie & Darren
Electricity: all four
Tonight: Robbie
Pablo's Cruise: Darren
Frontier Psychiatrist: Dexter & Robbie
Etoh: Robbie
Summer Crane: Robbie
Little Journey: Robbie
Live At Dominoes: Robbie & Tony (the Wildflower lineup - but Tony's contribution here may have just been singing, as an IRL sample source)
Extra Kings: Robbie & Darren

*except A Different Feeling, where one sample gets the entire publishing.

So I must prefer all of them together since my two favorite songs are those were the four of them are credited.