Released: 2001
Almost thirty years after it’s supposed first time out on John Kongos’ 1971 track He’s Gonna Step on You Again, sampling had come a long, long way baby. The idea of assembling tracks completely from other people’s music seemed at first to be the same as faking everything, but as producers of The Avalanches debut album Since I Left You, Robbie Chater and Darren Seltmann took the art of aural collage to spectacular new levels.
Like some kind of plunderphonics urban myth, the number of snippets it employed varies depending who’s talking, but before work on it began Chater and Seltmann had like Josh Davis before them spent months burrowing through thrift shop vinyl, in the process curating a formidable library of source material.
It’s title track remains definitive in more than just cut n’ paste terms. Built around a loop from The Main Attraction’s 1968 single Everyday, the interwoven dimphs of soul, jazzy flute, deep house and strings turn the original’s gooey sentiment round by a hundred and eight degrees, transforming it into a post breakup revelation. Cutting up life to give it a whole new meaning? As it proved, this kind of sonic wizardy was for much more than just borrowing someone else’s great ideas.
The Voice Of Unreason 
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