Since I Left You

The Avalanches began work on the album in 1999 under the working title Pablo's Cruise, primarily working with a Yamaha Promix 01 and Akai S2000 samplers.[6][7] Group members Darren Seltmann and Robbie Chater spent hours sampling music from vinyl records to create the songs on the album: Chater has estimated that there are over 3,500 samples that were used overall although some estimate the number to be much lower, roughly 900.[6][8] After sampling and arranging, the pair would swap their tapes, listen to each other's ideas, and expand on whatever they had heard. Despite working separately, both Chater and Seltmann had nearly identical studio set-ups.[6]

Initially, Seltmann and Chater were not planning for an international release. They were not concerned with copyright restrictions and so did not keep a list of which tracks were being sampled. According to Chater they "were really unorganised and were just sampling on the fly as tracks progressed ... We had no idea the record would get such a wide-scale release so we saw no need to keep track of what we were using – we were definitely guilty of harbouring a 'No-one's going to listen to it anyway' sort of attitude."[6] The sources span many different styles of music, sampling artists such as Françoise Hardy, Blowfly, Sérgio Mendes, Raekwon, Wayne and Shuster, and Madonna.[1] Seltmann felt that "[t]he more rejected and unwanted the record that a sample comes from, the more appealing it is, I guess it's almost a reaction to rare record finding, but occasionally things like 'Holiday' come up".[6] He described how making sample tapes for each other created some samples which were intended as "funny samples" that they had no original intention to get clearance for. In particular, Madonna's song "Holiday" was "one of those where we put something together, ended it with "Holiday" and all had a big laugh. It ended up where we couldn't live without it so I guess we just had to make that one work".[6] Later, Seltmann and Chater had a few problems when trying to clear all the samples. One sample that had to be removed was from Rodgers and Hammerstein in the intro that featured harps and girls singing.[6][9] After checking clearances, "[t]he album is slightly different to its original form in that it had a whole new introduction, which apparently was really recognisable, so we had to take that off straight away".[6] The Avalanches worked with sample-clearance expert Pat Shannahan to clear the thousands of samples in the record.[10] The group played their songs to flatmates to get input on which tracks were worth including on the album.[11] "Electricity" was the first song the group felt that worked; it was a last-minute addition to the album as the Avalanches felt the song "still sounds good".[11] In February 2000, Seltmann (as Dazzler) and Chater (as Bobby C) finished production on the album under the pseudonym Bobbydazzler, and its official title was revealed as Since I Left You in March 2000.[7]

Since I Left You was originally developed to be a concept album. Chater described its initial theme as a love story, "an international search for love from country to country. The idea of a guy following a girl around the world and always being one port behind. And that was just because we had all these records from all over the world, and we'd like to use all that stuff."[12] The concept album idea was abandoned when the group felt they should not make their themes too obvious.[12] The album's sound was in response to dance music at that time, that Chater felt was "about big drums, big production: think of a record like the Chemical Brothers "Block Rockin' Beats", with those amazing drums, and how huge those records sounded".[11] The Avalanches felt their early music could not compare to that sound and desired a recording with less bass that was influenced by 1960s music such as the Beach Boys and Phil Spector.[11]

When Since I Left You was being recorded, the Avalanches had trouble choosing songs to be released as singles, finding them not sounding as good outside the context of the album.[12] On 13 September 1999, they issued "Electricity" as a four-track 12" vinyl single in Australia (on Modular Recordings) and as a two-track 7" vinyl single in the United Kingdom (on Rex Records).[13][7][14][15] Chater felt that Modular was very patient with the group releasing the record.[11] On 21 August 2000, "Frontier Psychiatrist" was released as the second single from the album by Modular in Australia in both a four-track and two-track version.[13] The initial release date for Since I Left You was going to be 11 September; however, it was delayed due to issues with sample clearance. On 27 November, the album was issued in Australia with plans to have a worldwide release in early 2001.[13][7] The later release date outside Australia was due to additional sample clearances needed for international markets.[16] To celebrate the album's release in Melbourne, the group had a boat cruise party through Port Phillip Bay. On 5 February 2001, they released the album's title track as the third single in Australia, and followed on 23 July with "Radio".[13][7]

In April, Since I Left You was released in the UK through XL Recordings with the album selling far more copies than the label's original target amount.[16] On 28 April, it entered the UK Album Charts, which peaked at number eight and remained in the chart for 25 weeks.[7][17] In late March, the single "Since I Left You" was issued in the UK and entered the charts at number 16 on 7 April 2001.[13][7][17] On 6 November, Since I Left You was released in the United States by Sire Records,[18] and charted on the US Top Electronic Albums, peaking at number ten, and on the Top Heatseekers chart, peaking at number 31.[19] The album artwork features an excerpt of Sinking of USS President Lincoln by Fred Dana Marsh (1920).[20]

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	89/100[28]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[3]
Alternative Press	8/10[29]
Entertainment Weekly	B[30]
The Guardian	[31]
NME	9/10[32]
Pitchfork	9.5/10[33]
Q	[34]
Rolling Stone	[35]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[36]
Spin	9/10[37]

Seltmann and Chater did not initially think that Since I Left You would receive much attention.[6] However, the album garnered widespread critical acclaim from the music industry. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, it received an average score of 89, based on 21 reviews.[28] It became one of the best reviewed albums of 2001,[38] as well as being the highest rated dance album on that site.[39] The album peaked in the top 30 on the ARIA Albums Chart and number 12 in Norway on the VG-lista Top 40 Albums Chart.[40][41] At the ARIA Music Awards of 2001, the Avalanches won four awards from nine nominations, including Breakthrough Artist – Album, Best Dance Release and Producer of the Year (for Chater and Seltmann aka Bobbydazzler) for Since I Left You.[42] The fourth award win was for the related single, "Frontier Psychiatrist" as Breakthrough Artist – Single.[42]

Christian Ward of NME hailed it as "a joyous, kaleidoscopic masterpiece of sun-kissed disco-pop",[32] and Andy Battaglia from The A.V. Club called it "a psychedelic disco fry-up",[43] while Andy Kellman of AllMusic called it one of the most intimate and emotional dance records that is not vocal-based.[3] Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle found the album as surprising as "Primal Scream's life-changing Screamadelica was a decade ago. It's downright shocking how fun this is".[44] Pitchfork's Matt LeMay credited the Avalanches for developing a "unique context" for the songs without compromising their original "distinct flavor" and said that the album "sounds like nothing else" because of how the samples are employed rather than their quality or volume.[33] Q magazine's Gareth Grundy remarked that its clever music is delivered as engagingly as "more conventional dance sounds" and that the album "finally fulfils sampling's original promise" of producing new, extraordinary sounds from artfully appropriated pieces of existing songs.[34] Amy Bell of Drowned in Sound praised it as one of the year's best albums.[45]

Robert Christgau of The Village Voice was less enthusiastic and said that the Avalanches deliver "the long-promised new-songs-from-old-songs trick, in which untrackable samples are stitched together until they mesh into compelling music that never existed before. Unfortunately, the music in question is string-section disco."[4] Stylus Magazine's Tyler Martin felt that the tracks lack innovation, nuance, and rhythmic complexity, but that several of them are exceptional.[46] The website later placed the album at number 16 on their list of top 50 albums from 2000 to 2005.[47] In a retrospective review for The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, Michaelangelo Matos praised the Avalanches' balance of "the familiar and obscure" through their sampling techniques and their "playful, airy grooves", as well as the album's "surprisingly resonant emotional core".[36]

Credits according to album notes and AllMusic.[1][83]

• 2000 in music
• The Avalanches discography

• Dimery, Robert; Michael Lydon (2006). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Universe. ISBN 0-7893-1371-5.
• Warwick, Neil; Jon Kutner; Tony Brown (2004). The Complete Book of the British Charts: Singles and Albums. Omnibus Press. ISBN 1-84449-058-0.

• Since I Left You at Discogs
• Since I Left You at Metacritic
• Since I Left You at Rate Your Music