Artist Spotlight

Thanks to a misfiring synapse a few weeks ago, I was left obsessing over The Avalanches’ 2001 hit, “Frontier Psychiatrist,” for several days. It wouldn’t leave my brain until I finally gave into it. As I was too lazy to walk into the other room and grab the CD, I typed it into a Google search and within a brief millisecond found myself watching the song’s video for the first time.

Oh, and what a video it is! It’s like a psychedelic ’70s game show studio featuring flugelhorn players, disagreeing psychiatrists, a granny drummer, sheet ghosts, a horse’s ass, a cowboy shootout and more! I ended watching it several times in a row it was just so damn bizarre.

It was all I needed to pique my interest and I began researching the band to find out what they’d been up to since that album so long ago. Surprisingly, “Frontier Psychiatrist” was on their first and only full length album… though a rumored second album has supposedly been in the works for years.

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I was intrigued to learn that the Australian act was originally formed as a noise-punk band, but changed directions when one of their members, Manabu Etoh, was deported.

Known in the noise-punk days as Alarm 115, the band members decided to buy all their instruments at junk shops. Also at those junk shops, they also discovered a wealth of old vinyl, including: R&B, golf instruction albums and many other eclectic pieces. When Etoh was sent away, members Robbie Chater and Darren Seltmann began experimenting with the large pile of vinyl and used the recording studio at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology to create a 30-song demo.

Soon, a new lineup was formed to play the songs they created live and The Avalanches were born. Their debut 7″ was released in 1997, but their first full album didn’t come out until 2000 in Australia and 2001 across the ocean. Over the years, the lineup may have changed a bit, but the core members, Chater, Seltmann and Tony Diblasi are still involved and are supposedly closer than ever to finally releasing that second album. According to their Myspace page, as of the end of July, they are “putting the finishing touches on album 2.”

I found the timing of my newfound interest and the possible promising news of a sophomore release to be rather fate-ish and I wasn’t ready to give up the train of thought just yet. I wanted to hear more!

I pulled my dusty copy of Since I Left You out of my CD pile and proceeded to fall for it as I never had before. When I first got it, I loved “Frontier Psychiatrist,” but never really dug the rest of the album. It turns out, in listening to it now, with a much stronger appreciation for the eclectic and electronic, it’s a near masterpiece and one I wish I had listened to sooner!

The album is an amazing collection of 18 songs created by using more than 900 samples and snippets from the vinyl they picked up so long ago. The songs are each unique, yet, if you listen close enough, you can hear crossover and shared samples from one track to the next.

Filled mainly with joy, excitement and high energy, the album also has moments of melancholy and reflection. All in all, the aural experience they created feels alive; considering its background and creation, that is no small task!

To hopefully pique your interest a little more, here is the video for the title track, “Since I Left You.”

PS- If you can tell me who the turtle-bodied gentleman is who says “What does that mean?” multiple times in Frontier Psychiatrist, I will be so, so grateful! I recognize him, I just haven’t been able to place him and it’s been driving me barmy! (Insert joke about having to visit the Frontier Psychiatrist here).

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