The Avalanches: Since I Left You : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

The Avalanches are a five-man DJ-performance collective from the land down under who sample as freely as the Beastie Boys circa Paul's Boutique. Since I Left You is as sunny as an Australian summer, harnessing a wide range of music - soul, hip-hop, warped analog synths, disco, orchestral crescendos - with the new-toy joy of early sampling-based rap and a dance-music sensibility. The group transforms hundreds of samples from records, films, TV shows - you name it - into entirely new shapes. The sounds may be varied, but the vibe is consistent: Old-vinyl pops and hisses run through the album, and the overall production is as warm and gorgeous as the Jimmy Webb vocal sample in "Since I Left You." Songs such as "A Different Feeling" and "Electricity" are analog-filter disco - like Daft Punk without the Kraftwerk influence. "Two Hearts in 3/4 Time" is lilting psychedelic pop; "Little Journey" is Latin-tinged film music; and "Extra Kings" is a grand sunrise of an album closer. A record this layered and quirky is easier to make than it was when Prince Paul first started cutting up old 45s (case in point: the Wiseguys), but to do it well - keeping intact an aesthetic that threads together all these disparate sounds - is true talent.

ANTHONY BOZZA
(RS 882 - November 22, 2001)