The 20th-anniversary edition of The Avalanches‘ groundbreaking debut album, Since I Left You, has been released via Astralwerks. Originally released in Australia in 2000 and in the U.S./U.K. in 2001, Since I Left You was named one of the year’s best albums by critics around the world and later placed in the Top 10 of Pitchfork’s Top 200 Albums of the 2000s and in the Top 20 of Rolling Stone’s Greatest EDM Albums of All Time. Since I Left You 20th-Anniversary Deluxe Edition is available in vinyl, CD, and digital formats HERE.
In the hours leading up to the release of the deluxe edition, The Avalanches shared the visualizer for “Tonight May Have To Last Me All My Life” (MF DOOM Remix), one of the remarkable remixes exclusive to the deluxe edition. A previously unheard vocal contribution on the track serves as a bittersweet homage from the late, enigmatic master of the hip-hop underground, who passed away last October. Daniel Dumilethe, who performed as MF DOOM, was praised by The New York Times for forging “a style that was intricate and imaginative, calling on both esoteric and lowbrow references as well as cartoonish imagery in lyrics that could be poignantly emotional.” Born in London and raised on Long Island, Dumilethe released six albums plus full-length collaborations with Madlib and Danger Mouse, among others.
Prince Paul, the de facto fourth member of De La Soul and renowned remixer of Big Daddy Kane, Slick Rick and Queen Latifah, revisits the album’s exhilarating title track and acclaimed British producer/DJ Leon Vynehall brings a profound sense of reflection to his remix of “Tonight May Have To Last Me All My Life.” The deluxe edition also includes fresh mixes from Mario Caldato Jr., who produced the Beastie Boys’ multi-Platinum classics Paul’s Boutique, Check Your Head, Ill Communication and Hello Nasty.
No album ever made history quite like The Avalanches‘ debut. A meticulous labor of love sifted from the second-hand record bins of Melbourne, Since I Left You was an unprecedented act of musical invention filtered through the loving hands of young music-obsessed DJs and musicians to blossom into the ultimate feelgood world party soundtrack. The boundary-pushing orchestration of samples, some say as many as 3,500 uniquely sourced and spliced sound fragments, was unanimously acclaimed as an act of technical genius. But the glowing heart of the project, a story of oneness through time, space, and infinite diversity, was the magic spell that made the world melt in elation.
Since I Left You’s achievement was to break the easy but facile equation of depth with darkness, intensity with misery: on this record, it is happiness that is the complicated and mysterious state.”
The release and subsequent touring in support of Since I Left You was followed by a 16-year radio silence, which was broken with the release of The Avalanches’ sophomore album, Wildflower, which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Vinyl Albums chart and atop the Australian Albums chart in 2016. Their third album, We Will Always Love You, was awarded four stars by Rolling Stone and won the prestigious 2020 Australian Music Prize.
Announced as the inaugural Luminary Artists in Residence, The Avalanches will be performing Since I Left You with Australia’s Adelaide Symphony Orchestra on July 30 as part of “Illuminate Adelaide”: a major new event celebrating innovation, music, art, and light.
