The Avalanches

This 2001 release from Australia is a result of years of collecting vinyl, practicing the 1's and 2's and being influenced by hip-hop, downtempo, and House. Coming from a collective of DJs and instrumentalists, the album is saturated with soul diva samples taking a more musical approach to the scratch DJ genre with ambient layering of cinematic sequences.

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 record... More >

Using bits and pieces of dumb crap, which is ecological, to make smart crap, which is less so ("Frontier Psychiatrist," "Close to You") (Grade - **)