Herald rating: * * * *
(Modular/EMI)
Review: Russell Baillie
The debut by this group of Melbourne beat scientists caused quite a critical splash across the Tasman when it was released there in late 2000 — "arguably the best Australian dance record ever," said the Sydney Morning Herald, which also named it "the Australian album of the year."
Even to sceptical Kiwi ears, it sounds terrific. And the Avalanches are to be admired for their thorough disrespect for dance genres, their approach suggesting a cross-cultural turntable and sampler collision of the Pizzicatto Five, Coldcut and Daft Punk in its willfully eccentric, lounge-friendly, scratch-happy, hook-filled collage, which plays like a DJ mix album through its 18 tracks.
Along the way it does warped disco (on the opening and title track), craftily samples Madonna's Holiday (Stay Another Season), delivers a line in psychedelic-lounge (Two Hearts In 3/4 Time), and thumps hard and funky throughout (Flight Tonight, Frontier Scientist).
If it was a club, you'd be in for quite a night. As an album, it could well prove the start of one.
<i>The Avalanches:</i> Since I Left You
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