10 Years Later: The Avalanches, Since I Left You

It dawned on me the other day that Since I Left You, The Avalanches sprawling debut album, is approaching its 10 year birthday in November. For some reason this was a hard concept for me to understand. Probably because the aughts was the first decade for me that really flew by. I still think of 2000 as being just a couple of years ago. But when you realistically think about where you were then and how the world was, it starts to be put into perspective. For me, I was still living in upstate New York and was a good five months away from being able to order my first legal alcoholic drink. For America, we were still trying to figure out who was going to be our next president three weeks after the election. For the world, it meant still being able to bring regular sized shampoo with you on your plane. We had just calmed down from our biggest worry at the time, Y2K. Radiohead fans were frantically downloading Kid A off of Napster. There was no such thing as an iPod.

The point of all of this is that almost ten years later, we are still waiting for the follow up from our Melbourne friends. Details of a new album have been trickling out every year starting in 2005. You most likely know the story by now, but you can read the synopsis of the trials and tribulations of album number two here.

Since I Left You could be considered one of the earliest successful mash up records, a more subtle (and more original) version of what Girl Talk would start doing in 2002. Which is probably a key reason why we are still waiting for new music. The album is famously quoted as being comprised of around 3,500 samples, a bunch of which assumedly remained uncleared upon release. Something that is much harder to get away with in the year 2010. In fact the update last year was that the group were in the midst of this process. The last new details given were in January of this year that an October release was being anticipated. I think we all can agree that as long as we don't have to wait another 10 years, it will be worth it.







Delve deeper into the samples here.