The Avalanches

I did put up a review of "Frontier Psychiatrist" on my blog, but it doesn't fully do justice to the song, and certainly not to the album.

I don't have much to add that wasn't in my review, but what is interesting is how amazingly popular the album is here in Australia. Topping all the critics' lists, number six on the official national "alternative chart" (whatever that means), "Frontier Psychiatrist" voted 6th best song of the year by listeners of Triple J, the very popular national youth radio network. And of course the album plays everywhere, especially in music stores.

Sometimes this turns me against an album (the overkill effect), but instead all I can feel is a strange excitement - there are obviously a lot of people out there who are listening to really good music! The world can't be all bad.

Not surprising though, I guess. A great deal of the album's magic stems from the fact that as strange and wonderful it is, it's also a very accessable album. It's a party record as well as a sonic treasure chest, and its strict sampling aesthetic is leavened by the overwhelming presence of great toonz. There's something quite heartening about a record that can cross so many boundaries like that. Maybe it's the Dubya of pop?

Hopefully I'll get to see them live in two weeks. Already excited.

N. xx

www.beat.com.au

said that the BDO performance was boring (more or less), did you go the Melbourne concert?

I'm seeing them next week! :)

-Mike

What seems to be the problem, listening to the single, is that the band - like most crate-digging outfits - are too tasteful in their bliss. It's a single that does for breezy, uplifting pop what mid-90s trip-hop did for funk and old skool rap: fusses over it and squashes it a little.

Chatting on IM I compared it to GYBE!, too - the problem with that band being that they take a set of sounds which they know and we know stand for certain emotional things (seriousness, high emotion, existential pain) and they work them and work them and yes, we do feel that stuff, and they're a likeable and effective band for me but impossible to love. And I'm concerned that the Avalanches might have a similar effect - house beasts, lounge sounds, fluttery vocals, goofy samples, ah right I need to be joyful now, ta muchly.

Or maybe I'm overanalysing and I just don't like the band because the tunes are a bit sickly.

i think sukia, east of suez and tipsy have all done better with this template (although, having said that, the new tipsy album is a little disappointing too)

some of 'since i left you' is pretty good, its just nowhere near as good as everyone says.

oh, and does anyone remember that song 'slow walking' that the avalanches did a couple years ago? now, that was superb (although the rest of that ep was deadly dull)

On previous experience, DJ Shadow excepted, records with hundreds of samples stuck together can irritate. I guess it takes a real talent to "hear" how to integrate lots of disparate components to make something that is more than the sum of the pieces. In some ways I'd rather not know that the Avalanches record was a patchwork of samples. I'd rather see what I think, and find out later.

Are there any albums to which "Since I..." can be compared in MOOD, regardless of whether they were recorded conventionally or are sample- heavy?

I can almost understand why those discovering The Avalanches now might find them disappointing. Firstly, "Since I Left You" is a brilliant opener but an awful awful single. Standing alone it sounds pat, smug and ineffectual whereas on the album it strikes me as glorious and wondrous.

It's obviously been given the big push in the UK because the band now have a celebrated aesthetic and that song serves as a talking point for it in a way that "Frontier Psychiatrist" certainly didn't. And that's what was nice about the album when it came out here: that "what the fuck?" element when the expected indie-punk-hop moves were unexpectedly jettisoned in favour of such sweeping beauty. But now beauty is the band's schtick, so nothing shocks.

And obviously a couple of us did the naughty thing of building up this album to impossibly high expectations, and again the consequence is that the band acquire an uncomfortable sense of auteur-ship. Like, I find it interesting that Tom would use GYBE! as a comparison. I totally understand his point, but I reckon The Avalanches are a lot less deliberate or thought-out than GYBE! (or any of the current post-rock bands for that matter). I mean these guys are basically a group of larrakins who jump around on stage, and if anything the album's (relative) professionalism is a happy accident.

Obviously I can't just wave my hands and make everyone like it. I've been avoiding listening to it since my good headphones broke, but I know that my ardour hasn't faded.

I can see what Tom means about their sound being too predictably tasteful, but the single is unrepresentative. It's pretty much an introduction; when you get further into the album tracks like "A Different Feeling", "Two Hearts In 3-4 Time" and "Close to You" do the euphoric bliss thing far better and far less formulaically.

I don't think they're anything like as "wacky" as Dr C suspects; "Frontier Psychiatrist" is a red herring. "Etoh" and "Summer Crane" are where they really shine, after we're over that aberration; the latter has a rebirth of 70s radio pop cliche to at least equal Daft Punk's "Digital Love".

I think I may have overrated it slightly on Elidor, but only slightly. If you don't feel about halfway through "Electricity" that the rest of the world is suddenly far uglier and far more backward than it was yesterday, and it is now your duty to walk through each moment with a new zest, a new fervour, then I'm not sure whether you should be here.

but seriously, yes, as tim brings up, i blame the lot of you -- tim, robin, otis, ian -- for building expectations up to olympian heights. i *like* the avalanches, but i get the feeling from some that that's not enough; that anything less than devoting your life to them amounts to effrontery of the highest order. i can take some tracks, but i'd end up leaving more. it's a great -- bear with the use of the word here -- "gimmick," but the tunes don't stand up for me. perhaps this will be different by the next album, perhaps this is merely a warm-up. as always, time will tell.

the feeling i'm left with is that an album that alters one's world view should be a bit more convincing. to my ears, since i left you seems content to be breezy and pleasant, but i need more than that. the album, and i almost feel like i can't say this enough, *for me*, lacks a core, it lacks heart. it seems less like music made with genuine joy and love (cf. discovery) than like music crafted with...no, it sounds crafted, period. allow me to pigeonhole it as dance so that i may wrap this up: i believe that dance music is an appeal to your heart and soul from the beyond, which is why i'm not feeling since i left you: it comes across as dance music for your head.

"is being given to hyperbole a prerequisite for being an avalanches fans :)."

Well, maybe :). I do see what you mean that perhaps it doesn't necessarily utterly alter your view of the world in the way that such rapturous praise as thrown forward by myself and Tim, and that, by those criteria, it is a disappointment. I don't have any problem with others like yourself setting up their own, less ambitious criteria, and judging "Since I Left You" to be a success on those terms.

However, when the word "crafted" is used as a pejorative term, I do sometimes start worrying whether outmoded ideas about "meaning it" are being brought into the debate. I don't think *you* are, Fred, but I think you're stepping onto slightly dodgy ground. "Discovery" sounds to me at least as crafted as "Since I Left You"; obviously it's not based around sample collages, but the pomo craft mentality is still there, just less blatant.

"is being given to hyperbole a prerequisite for being an avalanches fans :)."

Well, maybe :). I do see what you mean that perhaps it doesn't necessarily utterly alter your view of the world in the way that such rapturous praise as thrown forward by myself and Tim, and that, by those criteria, it is a disappointment. I don't have any problem with others like yourself setting up their own, less ambitious criteria, and judging "Since I Left You" to be a success on those terms.

However, when the word "crafted" is used as a pejorative term, I do sometimes start worrying whether outmoded ideas about "meaning it" are being brought into the debate. I don't think *you* are, Fred, but I think you're stepping onto slightly dodgy ground. "Discovery" sounds to me at least as crafted as "Since I Left You"; obviously it's not based around sample collages, but the pomo craft mentality is still there, just less obvious.

i highly agree with you that discovery is a crafted album: of this there can be no doubt. however, the point i was trying to make, though i think i failed, was that since i left you sounds crafted. period. like a chemistry experiment. whereas, yes, discovery is crafted, but it goes on from there. and of course this is all highly subjective. ;)

I listened to the album again on good headphones on the way to university today, and yes it is still marvelous marvelous marvelous and I wouldn't change a word of my review. As much as I tend to be on the side of pop when it comes to double-standards, the deliberacy with which The Avalanches stake out their emotional targets doesn't strike me as a problem any more than it does with Destiny's Child or Britney. When I listen to "Born To Make You Happy" I recognise its manipulativeness (albeit not with such an English inflection) but I still *do* feel sad. So is the difference with, let us say, *alternative* music that there's a presumed smugness and/or claim to authenticity that irritates, or is it that we do in fact demand this authenticity in a way we have long ceased to in pop? Is the distinction with Daft Punk that they've so consistently played the artificiality card that the only recourse left to the thinking listener is to perversely perceive an *enhanced* authenticity or sense of meaning?

Ultimately Fred, as I noted before, I can't make you enjoy the album (and indeed you seem to take pleasure in that fact; how very Ned-like of you) but the implication of the "avalanches backlash" is that _Since I Left You_ is an album that dupes people, which hurts me in my heart.

The authenticity thing is a bit of a red herring. I dont think manipulation has anything to do with the realness or not of pop music. The annoying dialogue around sample-based records tends to be one of look-how-eclectic-rare-etc.-these-sounds-are: you're invited to admire the artist's tastes. But that's not happened with the Avalanches so far.

I dont know though, I've just not liked what I've heard much and thought I'd better grope around for a reason. Basically it catapults yours and Robin's soul into an ocean of joy and it leaves me thinking hold on, this is a bit cloying and annoying. And it's always easier to explain why you like something than why you don't. I've got other criticisms but I want to listen to the album and decide whether I'm right about them or not.

daft punk! they could be very well duping me into thinking that they mean all of what they're recording and it's really all just a big joke; i probably buy their simplicity of lyric and emotion because they're foreign and i potentially don't give them enough credit, etc. without getting further mired in theory, discovery hits the bullseye on my heart whereas since i left you merely grazes the ear. meanwhile, there is much hurt in that very same heart by your assertion that i take pleasure in disliking the album in ned- like fashion! ned-like! rarely have i been so insulted. but, yeah, i really wish that i loved since i left you as some of you do; i'm consistently looking out for new music to catapult my heart to the stars and based on all i heard i'm rather disappointed that it wasn't to be with me and the avalanches, though i shall continue to lend it my ear. most troubling, though, is that while i've not taken to the avalanches, radiohead's amnesiac, based on what i've listened to, is quickly becoming something i'm looking forward to. shocker!

Tom - I'd be *very* interested in your response to the album. I still think you'd realise after a while that it isn't that cloying and it *isn't* one of those emptily "smart", "superior" pomo projects, and in fact the most immediately striking thing about it is that it isn't like that. You were slightly disadvantaged by hearing "Frontier Psychiatrist" first - admittedly so did I, but I'd heard the whole album very soon and realised how (happily) untypical a novelty dud it is.

Yes, it works better as an album. It reminds me of a blither version of Hal Willner's Whoops, I'm An Indian - much more technically and sonically tingly but lacking the witty and beguiling mystery that album had for me. It's a good record, it'll soundtrack a Summer well and it deserves the praise it's getting if not the *degree* of praise.

But to finally anwser Dr.C's query: it's very hard to find a record to compare it with. Certainly not 'Discovery' (impossible). It just reminds me a bit of DJ Food's 'Recipe for Disaster'. I would think a rock-crit description could be along the lines of Mantronix doing a megamix with Art of Noise.

The way each song flows into the next (what brilliant editing!), I'm sure it works much better as a whole. This is not a record for the Napster freaks, I don't think. So anyone who has heard a track or two and is on the fence should take the plunge.

That luminarioes say he's great? well that just shows I'm a shallow person influenced by what other people say rather than what I hear.

That he's Australian? that my shallowness extends to the lowest most destructive emotion, patriotism,

That I am seeing him live in few weeks? that my general shallowness inevitably leads to the conclusion that I will have to see him live in the next few weeks (along with the Mad Professor).

Bring it on

That's from a t-shirt they sell on their website.

their supposed to be working on the new record now. who knows when it'll see the light of day. i doubt it would be before late 2004.

I'm on board!

why is this song so awesome

Saw this thread was updated and said to myself "if anyone in there doesn't like 'Together' then they can kick rocks", glad we're in the clear

it just occurred to me that I never actually listened to to their 2020 album, so I'm doing that now and it's excellent. sounds like a really good Gorillaz album to me, they've got Four Tet's ear for very pleasant sounds. wish I'd gotten into it during the pandemic.

I am curious though about all the guest spots, are they actually giving them parts to perform or is it a case of them just going "give us something" and figuring out what to do with it later? In other words did they ask Kurt Vile to do that or did he just come up with it on his own?

Nearly all of the guests* have writing credits. They were all sought out for bringing their own voice to a piece in progress: if a request didn’t pan out, that song got scrapped. Ppl got sent an explanation of the themes of the album to prompt what they wrote/played/sang.

Here’s Vile specifically:

avalanches are one of my fave bands doing it today their recordings put me in a trance

loved doing that they sent me the backtrack when I was pretty delirious on tour in Europe in 2019 and all the words came out pretty quick...

just fried and trying to stay spiritual but there was a lot of stuff that Robbie emailed me ... vibe text to go on ... that influenced me

we were on the same wavelength or something

loved the way the recording came out was surprised to hear Wayne coyne pop in at the end but that was cool (the main difference)

can't wait to work with them again, true modern inspirations

*Mick Jones doesn’t get writing for his BAD-style countermelody BVs, but he wasn’t asked to be on the record, just happened to be in the studio with Cola Boyy at the time. In fact, you might say that his presence on the record was… a Big Audio Mistake!!

ya that makes sense - the Cornelius bit for instance I'm sure they just asked "hey give us one of those moody guitar pieces you do". a lot of other guest spots though might as well be anyone, they don't really make sense unless they were just soliciting stuff from anyone whose business card they had. iirc Mouse on Mars' 2016 album Dimensional People was made this way, it's quite a bit wackier though

I know with quite a few of the collaborations on the album, they recorded with the artist present in a studio, and Cornelius was one of those, as they were sharing a bunch of stuff in their Instagram stories at the time.

xp not sure if Mick Jones would have gotten a writing credit even if he had been invited, as I recall his contribution was the line "we go on fighting with each other" which is a paraphrase of "we go on hurting each other", written by Geld and Udell.

I mean that’s why I specified the distinctly Jonesian melodic bits behind the verses, not the refrain. But it was only a set-up for the joke reference to a classic ILMeme.

a lot of other guest spots though might as well be anyone

idk the fact they do fit so well with the tracks/album makes their claim about matching music to artist v believable

they don't really make sense unless they were just soliciting stuff from anyone whose business card they had

the Avs manager got in touch at one point to ask “have you done a song with Tricky??” bcz they’d received an angry communiqué from Tricky’s manager. Robbie had organised it all by DMing Tricky on instagram.

The band talking about "Running Red Lights:"

“didn’t start out as a defining moment; ‘a single’ as it were. But Rivers responded to our fuzzed out Spacemen 3 inspired jam with such open heartedness, that we soon dropped all pretense and got down to the heart of the matter… loss. We love that wide eyed, elated, almost evangelical Los Angeles sense of possibility that he tapped into. He captures that feeling that comes on the other side of the abyss, when you have lost everything and know then, there is nothing more to lose. The way life is so beautiful and overwhelming and heartbreaking all at the same time."

Love how they dedicated the song to David Berman and used some lyrics from a Purple Mountains track in the song.

There was a snippet of what is likely to be "Every Single Weekend" with Jamie XX in a story on Instagram (that I don't see anymore) that sounded amazing.

says it will be out on June 1

a long snippet was on Jamie’s album last year

here's the clip I was referring to: https://www.tiktok.com/@theavalanches/video/7645021726660644104

as a big fan of late disco/italo and bossa nova/tropicalia it is fun to spot the main samples in “every single weekend”. It is certainly the best bits of Gilberto’s Gil “axe baba” and the backing track of All Trouveè’s “Darling”, although I’d argue that “Barely Breaking Even” is such a disco classic in its own right that it is a little distracting. I do like the “children’s choir” take on the vocal hook though. The legacy of baby’s gang and “stand on the word” continues…

New Album announced: No Bad Memories

Our new album 'No Bad Memories' is available to pre-order now.
Built from the memories, machines, jingles and sounds that shaped us.

Go ahead - chase a dream! 📼 16.10.https://t.co/FzLqejEWxW pic.twitter.com/QUtnScGX0K

— The Avalanches (@TheAvalanches) August 6, 2026

Awesome. Personally I think all 3 of their albums are fantastic and I'm sure this will be as well. Very curious to hear where they go with this theme. and who the guests are

31 tracks apparently!

guessing half of them will be like 20 seconds long, though I am intrigued by the idea of a 2 hour Avalanches album

Ah, this is just the best news. I'm with frogbs as I love all three of their albums.

Electricity came up on a playlist in the car last month and my five year old said, "I love this song". Later I showed her the videos for Since I Left You, Because I'm Me and Frontier Psychiatrist and she was hooked. Just keeps randomly saying, "you're a nut, you're crazy in the coconut" and "this boy needs therapy" around the house. Makes me so happy every time.

10/16 sounds so much better than "might take a couple years to clear the samples!" Soon enough to be as happy as a five-year-old!

It fell to a TV tuned to Rage just now to show me this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4rlDzJshXY

So I love all their post SILY work *but* I would kill for versions of the albums without the featured guest vocals - or maybe versions where the guest vocals are shortened, fading in and out of the mix. Some of them are great on their own, but they often overstay their welcome and are treated too reverently. That said, I like the full vocals on these new ones.

I fear I've reached the point where tracking down the sample sources (The Famous Five! Wilson Williams! etc) is more than half the fun. (That's been a major side-game ever since I was a tween but I guess I mean the Avalanches' concoctions don't often feel like freaky more-than-the-sum-of-their-parts alchemy these days.)

yeah i don’t find “Blue shadows” anywhere as good as the italo/balearic classic “shadows from nowhere” by blue gas, but I guess knowing the sample sort of ruins the fun.

avalanche rock get avalanche rock get avalanche rock get!

1. Track 1 - 00:41
Composers: Isao Tomita

2. "Together" - 03:18
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Jessy Lanza - Niketh Nair - Henry Prentiss Furr - Keith Hopwood - Malcolm Rowe

3. Track 3 - 00:18
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres

4. Track 4 - 01:37
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Lydia Kitto - Joshua Lloyd-Watson - Gilbert Moorer

5. "Every Single Weekend" - 02:10
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Jamie Smith - Leroy Burgess - James J. Calloway - Sonny Davenport - Gilberto Gil - M. Levy - M. Casartelli

6. Track 6 - 00:27
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres

7. "Blue Shadows" - 02:40
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Karen O - Celso Valli - Antonino Cocco - Hugo Vereker

8. Track 8 - 00:25
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres

9. Track 9 - 01:36
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Khadija Al Hanafi

10. Track 10 - 03:08
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Rivers Cuomo - Joseph Thornalley - Nathan Jean Demonii Bismuth - B. De Aquino - Jackie De Shannon - Jack Nitzsche

11. Track 11 - 00:32
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Erik Wiegand - Lynn DeFino - Roxanna Ward

12. Track 12 - 02:11
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Erick Elliott - Paulo Jerónimo - Jorge Washington

13. Track 13 - 00:27
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Khadija Al Hanafi - James Burke

14. Track 14 - 00:43
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Ryoji Ikeda - Khadija Al Hanafi

15. Track 15 - 02:37
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Khadija Al Hanafi - John Glacier - Doug Firebaugh

16. Track 16 - 01:02
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres

17. "Can't Get Over Losing You" - 02:49
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Tracy Geneviève Amare - Wilson Williams

18. Track 18 - 00:40
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Khadija Al Hanafi

19. Track 19 - 02:23
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Noah Lennox - Vini Reilly

20. Track 20 - 00:39
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres

21. Track 21 - 01:23
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Bill Jacocks

22. Track 22 ["SUV Heaven"] - 00:27
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Khadija Al Hanafi - Karen Manno - Jeff Franzel - Jonathan Rosen

23. Track 23 - 01:59
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Carly Simon

24. Track 24 - 00:19
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Ryoji Ikeda - Tracy Geneviève Amare

25. Track 25 - 02:25
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Joshua Mainnie - Jerome Lenoir

26. Track 26 - 00:34
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Mike Patton

27. Track 27 - 01:54
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Jim Spencer - Ed Tossing

28. Track 28 - 03:26
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Joshua Mainnie - Matthew James Aitken - Peter Alan Waterman - Mike Stock

29. Track 29 - 03:44
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Mike Patton

30. Track 30 - 03:18
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Lydia Kitto - Joshua Lloyd-Watson - Gilbert Moorer

31. Track 31 - 02:14
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Haruomi Hosono - Johnny Mercer

TOTAL = 52 minutes 6 seconds

31. Track 31 - 02:14
Composers: Robert Chater - Anthony Di Blasi - Andrew Szekeres - Haruomi Hosono - Johnny Mercer

hell yes

and the fact that it's shorter than the last two makes me anticipate it more. I thought We Will Always Love You was fantastic but it just takes so long to get going.

Ha please tell me Track 28 samples 'Roadblock'

TWO Ryoji Ikeda co-writes? what an unexpected contribution

I was pretty excited by that but look at the track times lol

Andy Juggernorks credits = first time the Avs have made two records in a row with the same lineup since 1999?

I was pretty excited by that but look at the track times lol

Wildflower II...for better or not I'm guessing it just flows seamlessly in much the same way as that

I'm pretty stoked for the record. their music always feels like such a celebration of humanity, to the point where I don't even mind when Rivers Cuomo shows up. yeah I hate that guy, but I don't *actually* hate him. curious how the album's concept is reflected in the sound

Incredible record. Easily my favorite of the post-SILY albums.

v nice
reminds me of dream sequins

I enjoyed the final third (?) more I dared expect to. That more effortlessly dreamy/floaty sequence. Really not sure what they were aiming for with most of those sub-1-minute interludes, however.

more than I dared

get to celebrate the Brewers going to the World Series with a new Avalanches album! can you feel it!? I think after a couple listens I'll delete some of those advert interludes. Then maybe after 20 more listens a fun geek out would be to construct a 120-minute playlist interweaving tracks from all 4 albums!

Even though I've enjoyed all their albums a lot, I loved this album way more than I was expecting to.

to the point where I don't even mind when Rivers Cuomo shows up

Feel this, I think he should only be able to exist in the Avalanches universe. Surprisingly like his track more than both the Panda Bear feature and the Karen O one (she's like chewing on styrofoam for me and the sample is really obvious by their standards I think)

But obviously this rules and feels like an absolute gift

my store hasn't got it in yet but the Dream Sequins comparison is really intriguing...also hearing a lot of Magic Oneohtrix Point Never which is cool, I can see Avalanches pulling off that concept way better

I don't have any problem with the Karen O and Rivers Cuomo songs because they are both singing in a style that suits the music rather than leaning into their personal shticks.

i doubt The Avalanches will ever make an album that will produce anything close to the exhilaration i felt when i heard SILY for the first time, but this gets close in places.

also, on a personal sentimental note.. i introduced my husband to The Avalanches when Wildflower was released (explaining the significance of them releasing a _second_ album), he unexpectedly became a huge fan, and each album release is now a very special thing in this household.

he just texted me he was listening to SILO on a drive <3

:)

I did a 100km non-stop hike and chanced upon someone playing SILO from their backpack (that late trippy passage with the majestic strings etc, I think) at about the 90 km mark, in a dark forest, at maybe 5 AM. If I didn't openly weep, I must have been close. Thankfully sunrise was not yet upon us so I was spared any assumptions that I'd been overcome by blisters/exhaustion alone lol.

Wildflower was what made me a fan. I never really got why people loved SILY so much but I listened to this because it was a big deal, thought it would allow me to go "see, I knew they were overrated" (I was a bit of a punk) but instead I really loved it, even Frankie Sinatra which everyone seemed to hate was so much fun. of course I later went back to SILY and was like, okay, this is actually pretty great...idk what they were doing just wasn't clicking. still think Wildflower is the better album though