Either you haven’t heard that in a while, or you missed the boat the first time around, E-Reserves is here to bring you some gems from the E-Reserve. Our first feature are the Avalanches, who you might remember were included in one of our playlists from over the summer. They’re a group from down under that compiled vinyl samples into a clever electronic album back in 2000 titled Since I Left You.  A lot of the sounds used have a warm nostalgia that infuse The Avalanches’ perfectly crafted, danceable beats. Yeah Develop baby.

since i left you – the avalanches

a different feeling – the avalanches

two hearts in 3/4 time – the avalanches

tonight may have to last me all my life – the avalanches

Some Aussie electronica video oddness this week, courtesy of The Avalanches.

It’s Frontier Psychiatrist, from their 2000/2001 (and so far only) album Since I Left You, created, I believe, using some 3500 samples from old vinyl recordings.

This is, I believe, the original video for the song, presumably created for it’s release in their native Australia, some months before it went on sale in the UK/US, but I can’t be sure. Quality is a bit ropey, unfortunately:

About two weeks ago a few of my friends and I got into a discussion over what we would list as our top ten albums of the decade.  It was noted that it would be awesome if something comes out in the last remaining months of this year to shatter our lists.  We’ll see…  Of course none of us were able to limit ourselves to a list of just ten albums.  The lists sprawled into a top ten, another ten, and then a handful of honorable mentions.  Looking back upon my list (which I am sure I will share on here eventually) I realized that my number ten spot could easily have been swapped for several albums from the next ten on my list.  One album that was vying for that spot was an hour long, true album:  The Avalanches – Since I Left You.

What prompted its exhibition here was a conversation I had with my neighbor.  She was talking about albums she likes to work out to.  She favored albums that have a continuity and steady upbeat tempo.  I then recommended to her The Avalanches, hoping it would fit the bill.  I haven’t heard back yet whether it has been successful for her.  I know that if I was one for going to the gym and working out on a regular basis then Since I Left You would be an easy playlist choice for me.  Clocking in at almost exactly an hour seems like just the perfect workout length.

If I was was to sum up the album in one word that word would be lush.  The melding of live instruments, electronics, and turntables creates a huge sonic landscape.  The other main attraction of the album is that it plays start to finish with no gaps:  a true album.  What is impressive is how seamlessly The Avalanches build and bridge the tracks.  A listen on headphones helps further recognize the lushness, especially on the back half of the album.

The album feels like a quintessential summer album with it’s fun, light veneer, from the opening track where it feels like you are having the curtain drawn on a beach party that you wander into.  There is the travel and escape motif throughout, another hallmark of summer, with references to catching flights, samples of the giant horns on old cruise ships and galloping horses.  But the album seems tinged with a melancholy only hinted at, the obvious title Since I Left You, the album art of life boats that makes me think of the ill fated Titanic, and the wistfulness of the final track.  Since I Left You embodies all the summer qualities I listed above, even the desire for it not to leave.  So, here at the end of a season you can keep a little reminder with you all the time.

~J

screen shot of The Avalanches – Since I Left You

Just posted a new blog at VENT about the upcoming free-screening at Texas A&M of PBS series Art:21.  The series focuses on the United States’ most intriguing contemporary art and artists.  The show is now on its fifth season.  I’ve only had the luck of stumbling upon a few episodes but from what I’ve seen it’s a visual smorgasbord for your looking balls as well as a way to get acquainted with the field of art in North America.

If you’re still unconvinced as to why art should play a bigger part in the culture of the United States, this is a perfect place to start.  Although were that the case, I can’t imagine why you would be here reading this blog!

First day of school and I’m keeping busybusybusy.  My head is going to spin from everything I’ve done and have yet to do … and it’s only Monday.  Thank Pete for The Avalanches and Boards of Canada or I wouldn’t have made it through today.  Might as well thank my ears for functioning while we’re at it.  But you know?  If I’m not busy I’m just bored and lame.  I must say that I’m already feeling bad for Mojo though.  Waking up early is no longer an option, I’m afraid.   It’s a necessity.  I’m thinking 7:30 AM is a good place to start.  For those of you who really know me you’re probably laughing your heads off.  Oh, WE’LL SEE.

Short morsel of goodness while you’re here. What I love about this song is that Boards of Canada knew when to stop and make you want more. MORE!!

Shoot.  I’m going to have to do a separate entry on the virtues of Boards of Canada.  They are that good.

Even more updates coming soon.  I went to Sugarland/Houston this past weekend to meet up with Gloria who took amazing photos for my up-until-recently defunct eBay store, formerly known as “Trunk,” now renamed as “The House that Funk Built.”  Defunct?  No no!  DeFUNKt.  Details later.

Cortar, pegar, unión, loops, ahora una voz salida directamente de una serie de televisión vieja, luego “La Isla Bonita” de Madonna al revés, sonido de caballos, guitarra acústica, ¡Ahora viene el scratching!.

Eso es Since I left You.

Avalanches no sólo hacen música, juegan con ella. Juegan con los sonidos, los unen, los mezclan, los cortan y los ensamblan de manera sorprendente, revolucionaria y fresca. La “música” que estos australianos pusieron en este disco está constituida por, aproximadamente,  3,500 viniles y la variedad en verdad se nota, pues lo mismo incluye voces, canciones pop, sonidos de animales, música antigua, etc. Todo esto vertido en un coctel que incita a escucharlo una y otra vez. A diferencia de proyectos similares como Girl Talk, The Avalanches son capaces de crear canciones  únicas, y con un sentido de unidad sorprendente. Esto no suena a un mero collage de sonidos superpuestos. Es caótico, pero en un sentido ordenado, y estructurado si es que tal cosa existe. Las meodías que crean son  fácilmente recordables, las canciones son rítmicas y a pesar de lo ecléctico de la música logran consolidar un estilo propio. Estética aparte, Since I left You es un disco asquerosamente divertido, y si no lo has escuchado, hazlo. Ya.

Es más, te dejo las dos canciones más famosas:

You’re a nut, You’re crazy in the coconut!

Much too nice to be inside, posting.

Cocaine Afternoon – Morgan Organ

Under the Sun – Kidda

Steal my Sunshine – Len

Since I Left You – The Avalanches

The Avalanches are/were so cool. They took thousands of samples off of vinyl records and created songs like this one. Brilliant! I love the parrot talking part too. And the video is too cool, fun and funny! I love the “playing of the horse” instrument.

Sadly their second album has yet to materialize (9 years later). However there have been some updates THIS MONTH (May 2009) on their site (http://www.theavalanches.com/) indicating they may be close to completion and getting the final copyrights for “clearing the samples”? We can only hope! *crosses fingers*

Click here for more info on The Avalanches – Since I Left You – “Frontier Psychiatrist”.

The MP3 may be purchased here:

The Avalanches - Since I Left You

The other day I was on one of my daily walks with my dog and iPod when I started thinking about some of my favorite albums to listen to in the spring. Music is very situational, but also seasonal too, as Christmas music can attest.

5. The Avalanches – Since I Left You

These guys kind of came out left field in late 2000 with this record, which consists entirely of sampled beats, voices, and sounds. Many compare it to DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing… because of the similar compositional qualities, but this one has a much more upbeat quality to it. Many of the samples that I recognize come from the 70s and 80s, giving the record a warm vintage sound, and I think of warm days, tree leaves blooming, the boom box booming, and local kids bricking basketball shots off the rim.

Key song: “A Different Feeling”

4. David Bowie – Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

This may be the quintessential David Bowie album to hear. Hunky Dory is a damn fine pop album and Low is Bowie as his most successful experimentally, but Ziggy Stardust combines pop, hard rock, and pure sun-shiny glam to beautiful effect. A line of melancholy strings through many of these songs though, which reminds me of the cold and rainy days that still linger into the early weeks of spring.

Key Song: “Moonage Daydream”

3. Panda Bear – Person Pitch

Panda Bear is the recording name of Noah Lennox, one of the guys in the band Animal Collective. Their sound is wild and almost undefinable, wavering between ferocious and eerily calm, threatening to barrel out of control at any moment. Lennox’s solo effort, however, takes root aspects of Animal Collective’s sound, simplifies it, and washes it in reverb and repetition. The effect is kaleidoscopic and hallucinatory, chock full of innocence and childlike glee. It’s the modern equivalent to Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds.

Key Song: “Bros”

2. Beach Boys – Pet Sounds

Those surfer boys have always been associated with bright and sunny days, totally free, without a care in the world. A life concerned with cute girls and fast cars. Love is always in the air. But Pet Sounds changed all that. Brian Wilson turned inward for material, lacing their cheery sound with traces of insecurity and sadness. It’s almost heartbreakingly beautiful, the most subtle of bittersweet musical concoctions. It’s an album I turn to over and over when the frost of winter begins to recede.

Key Song: “Here Today”

1. Electric Light Orchestra – Out of the Blue

ELO’s magnum opus. Themes of night and rain. Yet the most famous part of this album is the musical suite ‘Concerto for a Rainy Day’, which concludes with the song “Mr. Blue Sky.” It begins with an upbeat piano and the lyrics, “Sun is shining in the sky, there ain’t a cloud in sight. It’s stopped raining, everybody’s in a play…and don’t you know, it’s a beautiful new day? Hey-hey-hey.” It’s the perfect encapsulation of what this album, and accordingly, spring is all about. For an hour and ten minutes, ELO pounds out one great song after another, dousing your ears with pure unadulterated happiness. Few albums are more lively and uplifting. It has more hooks than you can shake a stick at, featuring the ultimate in symphonic pop rock, oodles of orchestral flourishes, melodrama, and the catchiest of choruses that will have you humming and singing along in no time, feet a-poundin’ away to the beat, walking through another beautiful new spring day.

Key songs: “Standing in the Rain,” “Big Wheels,” “Summer and Lightning,” “Mr. Blue Sky” – the four songs of ‘Concerto for a Rainy Day’

i wasn’t too impressed with cut copy’s live set last year at good vibrations, so i was pretty determined not to enjoy their new album in ghost colours released this year on modular records. however, since the mighty avalanches are still taking their time putting the final touches to their long awaited follow-up to since i left you (they’re crazy in the coconut!), i decided, grudgingly, to give label mates cut copy a try, and boy was i glad i did. a guilt-free journey into the depths of 80s dance, the album is as much a tribute to predecessors like new order as it is a progression from them, piecing their various influences together in one seamless party mix. to me, in ghost colours is a timely reminder of the crucial role of transitional tracks, and listening to the surreal anticipation of “voices in quartz” in litford’s car tonight showed me just how incomplete the sublime “hearts on fire” is without its humble forerunner preparing the way. so here’s both tracks for you, only to be played together of course.

mp3: cut copy – voices in quartz

mp3: cut copy – hearts on fire

Yes, it has been a while since I have done this! But I’m back, so hopefully you are still with me. This week I have been listening to some more hip-hop inclined stuff, which should be equally noted.

Newer:

For the new album, it has got to be Walé’s The Mixtape About Nothing which combines a variety of MC styles including Wayne, Talib Kweli, and Kanye west, rapping over Seinfeld samples and talking about DC, his place of origin (I just so happen to be of DC area residence as well). He’s probably the next big thing in Hip-Hop and he’s reppin’ the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) quite nicely.

key tracks: “The Perfect Plan,” “The Artistic Integrity”

Older:

As for the older album, 1999’s Australian DJ set The Avalances’ Since I Left You is quite a piece of work. One of the better solely sample produced records I have ever heard, similar to the likes of DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing . . . , The Avalanches combine a vast array of samples to create a Soulful, Hip-Hop/Trip-Hop sound that’s in a league of its own.

Key Tracks: “Since I Left You,” “Frontier Psychiatrist”

Junior ran the rule over this yesterday, on her third birthday. She’s come a long way since she was ruthlessly tearing a strip off Julie Andrews and Antipop Consortium (separate singles, not some breathtaking minimalist hip-hop/prim-yet-somehow-racy-nun mash-up) when she was 20 weeks old. Her critical faculties have sharpened, perhaps, but right now she dances to pretty much everything, willy-nilly. ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’ witnessed some wiggling about and a dashed-off mime to a violin sample, before she returned to the more demanding matter of unwrapping piles of presents.

It’s a silly record, representative of its parent album Since I Left You only by dint of the ear-popping collage of samples. ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’ is a bit Fatboy Slim; Since I Left You is warm, inspired, mood-driven and dazzling. If I were the type to stat these things up and make list upon list – and I am – I’d say it’s not just the album of 2001, it’s the album of the century so far. From the thrilling four-song build-up to ‘A Different Feeling’ to the gorgeous come-down of ‘Summer Crane’, ‘Etoh’ and ‘Three Kings’, it’s a seamless tapestry of ideas, emotions and balls-out party fun. Where’s the follow-up, lads? If they’re making one – and they occasionally insist they are, still – they must be clearing even more samples this time.

As the vinyl presence in charity shops starts to dwindle, you have to fear for The Avalanches’ source material. I might beat them to the punch myself, cutting up rough with those 93 BBC sound effects 7”s I bought in Oxfam last year…

Bienvenidos al extraño mundo del australiano Jeremy Dower, un mundo habitado por extrañas criaturas simétricas como Schmoopy o Planky que parece que vayan a saltar de la pantalla en cualquier momento. Los trabajos de Dower han cobrado vida en la MTV o en Nintendo. Además de ilustraciones Dower hace música electrónica y ha publicado un par de discos como Sentimental Dance Music For Couples o Music for Retirement Villages

Gracias a Surrealisma (que está un poco vago) por la aportación.

Música:
The Avalanches “Since I Left You”

Here’s the playlist for Friday’s show on www.phantom.ie and Phantom 105.2 in Dublin which was plagued by strange machine madness and myself playing the role of bumbling fool. The ‘Under The Radar’ album was:

PLAYLIST:

THE FUTUREHEADS – Radio Heart
HOLY FUCK – Lovely Allen
WHITE DENIM – Let’s Talk About It
CLINIC – Memories
BRUCE RUFFIN – Rain
THE LAST SHADOW PUPPETS – My mistakes were made for you [SEE VIDEO BELOW}

LADYTRON – Ghosts
DAEMIAN FROST – Slut Style
BROADCAST – Come On, Let’s Go
SANTOGOLD – Say Aha
THE AVALANCHES – Electricity
BORN RUFFIANS – Red, Yellow & Blue
OPPENHEIMER – The Never Never
ISOBEL CAMPBELL & MARK LANEGAN – Who Built The Road
THE NOTWIST – Good Lies
M83 – Highway of Endless Dreams
MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND – Inside A Boy
THE AVALANCHES – Frontier Psychiatrist [SEE VIDEO BELOW}

FUTURE OF THE LEFT – Manchasm [SEE VIDEO BELOW}

MICHAEL KNIGHT – Coronation St.
DEXY’S MIDNIGHT RUNNERS – Seven Days Too Long
JAPE – I was a Man
LE GALAXIE – We bleed the blood of Androids
ELF POWER – Paralysed
THE AVALANCHES – Two hearts in 3/4 Time
RADIOACTIVE MAN – Nothing At All
ATLAS SOUND – River Card
MONADE – Regarde
MGMT – Electric Feel (J-La’s BK Futures Edit)

i really like this song…really really…