Avalanches - A Collage of Emotions

A group of Australian musicians and DJs with a very limited output, the Avalanches needed little to leave their mark on the history of music between the two millennia. Beyond their era-defining debut, we retrace the story of an outfit that knows how to entertain and move its audience

by Antonio Silvestri

A group of Australian musicians and DJs with a very limited output, the Avalanches needed little to leave their mark on the history of music between the two millennia. They first captivated their own country, racking up awards and enthusiastic critical acclaim, then conquered the world with an era-defining debut, Since I Left You (2000), a masterpiece of plunderphonics, built on the massive, wildly creative use of pre-existing musical material.

Their career, starting out in noise and punk and continuing through demos, name changes, EPs, mixtapes, very long hiatuses and countless samples, has over the years become a precious testimony to an era of popular music marked by major shifts in both the industry and its aesthetics.

Alarms, Peas and Avalanches: the band's origins and early releases (1994-1998)

The prehistory of the Avalanches is a curious one. The foundations of the group were laid by Alarm 115, formed in Melbourne in 1994 and inspired by bands blending punk and noise, such as Drive Like Jehu, Fall and Ultra Bide.

Robbie Carter, on keyboards, and Darren Seltman, on vocals, met as flatmates, while Tony Di Blasi, on keyboards and bass, joined shortly after. Seltman was already the drummer for Ripe, and while on tour between the United States and Europe, he had the chance to catch a Drive Like Jehu show, and was left thunderstruck by the intensity of the experience.

Alarm 115, with Manabu Etoh added on drums, recorded a four-song demo in 1995, but shortly afterwards their activity became sporadic: they worked on another demo in 1996, which met with little success, and shifted their sound towards the funk of Japan's Kiochi Oki, also bringing in a friend of Carter's, Gordon McQuilten. This rather ramshackle lineup performed under the colourful noms de guerre Swingin Monkey Cocks, Quentin's Brittle Bones and Whoops Downs Syndrome, before borrowing the name Avalanches from a US surf-rock band with just one album to its name.

In 1997 things began to change, with their first record deal, signed with Australian label Wondergram. During these months DJ Dexter Fabay also joined the lineup, and the band opened a show for Jon Spencer.

They released their debut single "Rock City" (1997) and their first EP, El Producto (1997), then opened for Public Enemy (1998) and also released an EP in the United Kingdom, Undersea Community (1999).

James Dela Cruz starts playing live shows, in a period when they also open for Beastie Boys, Beck and Stereolab.

Electricity is a further Ep released in 1999, when the band had already started working on their much-anticipated debut.

"No-one's going to listen to it anyway": the unexpected success of "Since I Left You" and the legal troubles (1999-2003)

Since I left you

I found the world so new

Originally meant to be called "Pablo's Cruise", Since I Left You was put together by Darren Seltmann and Robbie Chater by assembling something like 3500 samples, in an exhilarating back-and-forth: once one of them pieced together an idea, he'd pass it to the other, who would carry it forward and expand on it, in a sort of synergistic creative loop carried out with two twin compositional setups dominated by Yamaha Promix 01 mixers and Akai S2000 samplers.

As Chater stated in a 2002 interview with "Sound On Sound", it was considered unlikely that the album would become an international release, or even just an Australian hit, to the point that it was written on the assumption that "no-one's going to listen to it anyway".

In extracting sounds, melodies, voices and rhythms, the duo didn't bother keeping track of the sampled tracks, gathering samples far and wide, from obscure records to some outrageously famous pop hits (even Madonna's "Holiday" turns up).

When Since I Left You was set for release on a wider market, first nationally and then internationally, the copyright tied to the avalanche of samples used had to be sorted out, an operation that also required some minor changes to the final shape of the record.

Born as a response to the loud, aggressive big-beat sound of Chemical Brothers and Prodigy, the Australians' debut album draws on the sweet melancholy of the Beach Boys and the lush arrangements of Phil Spector, conjuring nostalgic reminiscences and hallucinated journeys back in time, across long-forgotten dancefloors, among black-and-white faces from other eras.

All of this, however, without giving up on the idea of a danceable album, one with a disco soul rather than a techno one, decidedly more emotional than physical, where the heart triumphs over mechanical drive. If much of the electronic music straddling the two millennia is technological if not downright robotic, in the lineage of Kraftwerk and Moroder, the Avalanches aim for the sweetest feelings, enchanting the listener in a whirlwind of sonic fragments assembled in a psychedelic spirit, not without a healthy dose of fun.

From a taxonomic standpoint, this sound-collage can be labelled plunderphonics, after the title of John Oswald's book "Plunderphonics, Or Audio Piracy As A Compositional Prerogative": an idea of composition with sampling as its core element, with no original material, where assembly itself becomes an art form.

From other points of view, less tied to the compositional method and more to the final result, Since I Left You is a curious meeting point between hip-hop and its sampling culture, from the Bomb Squad's work with Public Enemy to the sophisticated instrumental hip-hop of Dj Shadow, and between disco music with its lavishly arranged geometric rhythms and Sixties psychedelia.

For these reasons, some might even use terms like sampledelia, evoking the disorienting listening experience that expands on the already sophisticated sonic puzzles of the Eighties and Nineties to suggest a dreamlike dancefloor.

Since I Left You was introduced by the hilarious single "Frontier Psychiatrist", released in August 2000, in theory not long before the album's scheduled release date. In Australia the debut didn't hit shops until late November, while its international release only came well into 2001, due to further copyright issues.

The significant delays led to bootlegs circulating, which the band tried to curb with the mixtape Gimix (2000).

Completely unexpectedly, even to the band members themselves, the album achieves great success: it goes platinum in Australia and gold in the United Kingdom. It also makes an impact in Norway, the United States and Scotland. Riding on the back of a dedicated EP, At Last Alone (2001), the album is also released in Japan.

What really wins over, however, is the critics, who hail Since I Left You as one of the most important albums of the year and of the decade, one of the masterpieces of Australian music and one of the most acclaimed dance albums of all time. At home it wins no fewer than four awards at the "ARIA Music Awards of 2001" and a full six at the "Australian Dance Music Awards". The video for the title track also wins an MTV Europe Music Award for video of the year.

Given its bizarre originality, it's surprising that the album didn't appeal only to a small circle of devotees. The reason lies in the 60 minutes spread across the 18 tracks that make up the running order.

It opens with “Since I Left You”, also the third single lifted from the album, which samples the chorus of “Everyday” by the Main Attraction, completely subverting its meaning: from a joyous love song to a melancholy ballad about the end of a relationship, arranged in a lavish, psychedelic fashion. It's just one of the many ways the Avalanches play with collage, going so far as to merge wildly distant styles (even “Anema e core” turns up, in Tony Mottola's version).

In the album's uninterrupted musical flow we also find the psychedelic funk of “Radio”, a house-warmed reinterpretation reminiscent of the more analogue Daft Punk, and the triple time of “Two Hearts In ¾ Time”, which blends John Cale with Marlena Shaw's voice for a melancholy waltz. “Flight Tonight” is an exception, a more mechanical, aggressive track that draws on both the reggae of Billy Boyo and the rap of Prince Paul and De La Soul for its vocals.

There's also plenty of room to return to kaleidoscopic disco music with “Close To You”, which manages to bring together Spain's Xavier Cugat, Sesame Street and Cerrone. One of the high points of their entire discography also appears here, the single “Electricity”, a disco-rap vision that fuses Blowfly's “Rapp Dirty”, the drums of Rotary Connection's “Life Could” and the visionary jazz of Sun Ra (and his “Say”).

The masterpiece is probably the single “Frontier Psychiatrist”, with scratching by Dexter Fabay, excerpts from a sketch by Canadian comedy duo Wayne and Shuster, and an orchestral arrangement drawn mainly from “My Way Of Life” by the Enoch Light Singers: an exercise in creative reconstruction, hilarious in tone and spectacular in intensity, that leaves you thrilled by the sheer joyous fun it delivers. A track like this is worthy of the most unhinged Coldcut.

At least a couple more flashes of genius arrive toward the end of the running order: when “Little Journey” dwindles to a whisper, then is reborn as a joyful tribal dance made of natural sounds, before a sweeping string arrangement steps in; and when “Live At Dominoes” sends a disco-funk track into orbit, burying it under distortion, samples and all sorts of twists.

The release is backed by a promotional tour that sells out entirely at home, followed by a string of shows in Europe. Due to a double injury suffered by Seltman, the final European dates, as well as the US and Japanese ones, which stretched on into 2003, end up being DJ sets. Of a new album, however, there is no sign.

The Long Wait and “Wildflower” (2004-2019)

Ah, Frankie Sinatra, ah, Frank Sinatra

Frankie, me boy, don’t know

You have the perfect voice to sing calypso

In Melbourne, the Avalanches went on to perform at special event nights and festivals, roughly until the end of the 2000s. The band wrote new music, but had no large-scale project in mind, and everything was made more difficult by a long illness suffered by Chater. In 2005, talk finally began of a follow-up to Since I Left You that was meant to come closer to the live experience, but for years the rumors remained vague.

The first sign that something was brewing was a statement from Danny Brown, who said he had worked with the band on a new track, “Frank Sinatra”. However, the group scattered its energies across side projects: it contributed a mere 25 seconds of music to the theatrical production “King Kong” (2013), which demanded a great deal of work; it also collaborated on a psychedelic animation project with a South Korean artist, which sadly never saw the light of day. Of the original lineup, by 2014 only Chater and Di Blasi remained: Seltmann had focused on family life since 2006. In 2015, James Dela Cruz rejoined the Avalanches.

Wildflowers (2016), the long-awaited second album, is built on material produced over more than fifteen years. The compositional approach has changed: samples are now paired with original contributions.

The guest list is exceptional, including: Jonathan Donahue of Mercury Rev, who sings and also plays the saw on several tracks; Kevin Parker of Tame Impala, who is on drums on "Going Home"; violinist Warren Ellis, who contributes to "Stepkids"; Danny Brown, who raps on "Frankie Sinatra" alongside MF Doom and "The Wozard Of Iz"; Josh "Father John Misty" Tillman, who sings on "Saturday Night Inside Out"; Chaz "Toro Y Moi" Bear, who sings and plays guitar on "If I Was A Folkstar".

Many of the singers involved ended up not making the final cut of the album, given the huge number of tracks the band scrapped along the way.

Leaning more heavily into hip-hop, and even more disorienting as original material melts into sampled material, Wildflowers retains the deliciously melancholic, nostalgic spirit of Since I Left You, toying with the listener's emotions and matching its creative richness. Remarkably, it's a follow-up that arrives at a point when no one has yet managed to replicate the formula of the debut, despite its success and the long time that has passed.

From the touching naivety of "Because I'm Me" — sweet and simple as first love, even if dressed up in psychedelic splendor, once again somewhere between the Beach Boys and Phil Spector — we reach the first, irresistible single, "Frankie Sinatra": a clumsy, clownish strut, a hypnotic sample, and rap verses from two heavyweights, Danny Brown and MF DOOM.

If she don’t love me

What can I do?

Just put on my best pair of shoes

The dreamlike texture, set to a disco beat, is still front and center, with its unexpected sixties-style touches in the vocal harmonies and dazed mood, but there's also room for instrumental lyricism ("Zap!") and hilarious plunderphonics constructions ("The Noisy Eater", a worthy heir to "Frontier Psychiatrist").

Overall, the stylistic range has broadened, especially toward folk and hip-hop, but also with notable influences from vintage orchestration, as shown by the grainy, nostalgic dance feel of "Light Up".

A journey between dream and memory, Wildflowers can't claim the same surprise factor as Since I Left You, but it marks a return by The Avalanches — or whatever's left of them — that is much more than good news for fans: this kaleidoscope of quotations and recontextualizations, with its fusions of original and sampled material, is a listen that leads into a world that is hypnagogic and vibrantly alive.

Having gone platinum in Australia and charted respectably in a few countries abroad, the album was above all embraced by critics, who ranked it among the year's best.

Wildflower was promoted by a tour carried out in 2017 by Di Blasi alone, since Chater was busy getting sober.

A Matter of Time: "We Will Always Love You" (from 2020 to today)

Night time, on fire, dreaming of another life

After selling off around 7,000 records from their own collection, Chater and Di Blasi began working on a third album. It's called We Will Always Love You and arrived in December 2020, "just" four years after its predecessor.

It makes use of sampling, but following a far less extreme philosophy than its predecessors. Commenting on the different sample density, Chater said, in a 2020 interview for NME, that he didn't want to work alone for six to eight years, the time needed to put together a new album built mainly on samples, a process that takes an enormous amount of time.

This time, musician Andrew Szekeres helped them weave the various samples together with original fragments.

Once again, the roster of collaborators is exceptional: from Blood Orange to Denzel Curry, from Tricky to Perry Farrell, not to mention Jamie xx and many others. The mood is more intimate, to the point that the whole listen takes shape as a meditation on existence, on death and on what comes after.

If Wildflowers was hypnagogic, We Will Always Love You edges closer to the idea of hauntology that Simon Reynolds used to describe artists like Caretaker. Musically, it's their most conventional album, driven by heartfelt ballads ("We Will Always Love You") or sensual ones ("Until Daylight Comes") and more straightforward dancefloor-ready disco numbers, still steeped in their vintage style ("The Divine Chord", "Music Makes Me High", "Overcome").

In some passages the Avalanches come close to a notion of house not too far removed from Avicii's ("Interstellar Love") or from late-period Daft Punk ("On The Sunn"), before returning to more elaborate blends with r'n'b on "Reflecting Light", with its chipmunk-soul choruses, or to unsettling interweavings of chanting voices and obsessive basslines on "Wherever You Go", which opens with spectral flourishes before bursting into an exuberant, android-like second half.

The album's masterpiece is perhaps "Take Care In Your Dreaming", in the way it fuses a hazy piano ballad with two frenetic raps and an array of beats: it's the kind of grandeur for which Kanye West is rightly celebrated.

The emotional peak, on the other hand, is the stirring prayer of "Gold Sky", though the sweet pop melody of "Running Red Lights" also strikes right at the heart.

If the adjective "healing" can ever be applied to a listening experience, then We Will Always Love You earns it, with its constant questioning of life and death, the warmth of its melodies, and the richness of sweetness and melancholy in its arrangements. It confronts us with what we've lost, forcing us to ask ourselves who we are and what we want to do with our lives.

It's the third album from a group that left Since I Left You behind to be reborn in the pursuit of love, understood as a universal, all-powerful force that heals wounds and binds everyone and everything together.

Once again greeted with enthusiasm by critics, though with less commercial success, it's the classic album of maturity, the third in a discography that has never disappointed. And to think it all began from the conviction that, in the end, nobody would ever really listen to this strange Australian music.