Was the Avalanches' Since I Left You too good to follow up?

There are mythical albums – and then there’s Since I Left You. In the 14 years since its release, the cult around the Avalanches’ debut full-length has swelled. It’s mostly because Since I Left You is an incredible album with a backstory to match – it’s supposedly a patchwork of more than 3,500 vinyl samples – and also because its follow-up is still yet to appear.

There have been teasers. First there was a 2006 press release issued by the Avalanches' record label Modular that stated in no uncertain terms that “they’ve made the record of their lives basically”. Then a note from the band themselves: “It’s so fuckin party you will die.”

A few more years of sample-clearing and mixing followed. An October 2010 release date was mooted. Then a rumoured collaboration with Ariel Pink. Claims from rapper Danny Brown that he’s worked on a song called Frank Sinatra. Two working titles, On a Saturday and Friday Night Fever. Confirmation of a co-production called The Stepkids with Royal Trux’s Jennifer Herrema that’s “probably the best song we ever done”. Rumours of local musicians being brought in for sessions. Will this damn thing ever get released?

The answer is probably, but no one’s really sure when. The latest missive from Modular is that it simply “sounds awesome, but there’s no dates or anything planned”, while an acquaintance of the band responded with “Who the shit knows?” when I pressed for even a rough timeframe.

In the interim, the Melbourne collective have shed four members – including arguably Australia’s greatest turntablist Dexter Fabay and multi-instrumentalist Darren Seltmann. It leaves only Robbie Chater and Tony DiBlasi to deal with more than a decade’s worth of fervent myth-building, the kind of which delivered Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy its ultimate kiss of death.

But Sydney artist Jonti says the comparison to Axl Rose’s widely panned vanity project – which for years became shorthand for any album that had been significantly delayed – is unfair. And he would know. The Stones Throw signing confirmed he was “helping them with the album” in a 2013 interview with the Vine, although he’s reluctant to say what his actual involvement is. “It’s definitely a million times better than Chinese Democracy," he says, laughing. “From what I’ve heard it sounds amazing. When the record comes out, that comparison will never be mentioned again.”

Jonti is one of the driving forces behind a live re-imaging of Since I Left You at Vivid Live in Sydney this Saturday. Originally produced for OutsideIn Festival in 2013, the project has swelled to 17 musicians including a six-piece string section and up-and-coming singer-producer Rainbow Chan. Jonti describes it as a celebration of his favourite album, and it even comes with a personal endorsement from the Avalanches – or what’s left of them, anyway.

“Robbie and Tony gave me a bunch of vocal stems and they gave me a lot of records that are on there, even though you can’t really hear them,” says Jonti, who went through the painstaking process of trying to identify the thousands of samples last year. Some of his favourites include Klaus Wunderlich’s lounge-pop obscurity Let's Do the Latin Hustle; Everyday by 60s pop group the Main Attraction, which serves as the hook to the album’s title track; and a repurposed funk groove from a 12” by x-rated rapper Blowfly. “There are heaps of samples I couldn’t chase down, but they came from everywhere, from any genre,” Jonti says.

In a rare 2013 interview with Triple J magazine, Chater said sampling provided a way to carve out their own niche in a dance music universe dominated by acts like the Chemical Brothers and their big, block-rockin’ beats. “We thought, we're never gonna win a battle of beats with a record like that. So instead we went, why don't we try to make a record that was more 60s influence, with less bass, inspired by Phil Spector and the Beach Boys — but using dance music techniques? A light, FM-pop record?”

They began sampling bits and bobs from records found in trading magazines and op-shop bargain bins, stitching them together using a Emagic, a discontinued audio workstation that Chater and DiBlasi still use today. “Luckily, there were so many $2 records in op shops around at the time that once you had a sampler you didn't need much money to have access to all these fantastic sounds,” Chater told the magazine. “It seemed like such a fantastic way to create exciting sounds, and cheaply.”

Darren Cross, from like-minded 90s innovators Gerling, began hanging out and playing with the Avalanches around the time of their 1997 El Producto EP. “They were doing the Dr Octagon/Beastie Boys live rapping thing and getting chased by all the big labels,” he recalls from his Sydney studio. “They even took us out to dinner with record companies schmoozing them.”

The Avalanches were eventually snapped up by Sydney promoter Stephen “Pav” Pavlovic and his new imprint Modular Recordings around the time Since I Left You began taking shape. Cross – who makes alt-country records these days as part of the duo Jep and Dep – first heard the album in the late 1990s at Chater’s house in Fitzroy. “I knew it was going to be massive, just taking the DJ Shadow thing and going fucking completely Jackson Pollock with it,” he recalls.

He says the oft-quoted figure of 3,500 samples is an underestimate. “I remember seeing all the records Darren Seltmann bought from the Trading Post or something, about 4,000 of them in milk crates. They were completely nuts about sampling and they were all nut jobs as well.”

So how did they create an album of such immense breadth and beauty from curios found in op-shop bargain bins? “I think it just took a hell of a lot of effort and obsession, especially from Robbie. He was crazy in the coconuts at the time,” he says, referring to the hook from Frontier Psychiatrist. “A combo of all those personalities was very overwhelming – all freaking weirdos strangling everything out of the latest technology. They lived and breathed that record and it caused a few casualties making that album, that’s for sure.”

Despite its tricky gestation, Since I Left You was no slow-burning cult classic. Its impact was immediate, charting well in both Australia and the UK (where it was released through XL) and selling roughly 600,000 copies. Its influence is still being felt by artists today. Rising 22-year-old rapper Remi Kolawole reimagined the title track on Triple J last year. “The title Since I Left You fit perfectly with what I wanted to say on the track, even if it meant flipping the vocal sample, from being about losing a lover to losing my old life.” He considers the album a sampling masterpiece. “They combined everything from breaks, to Latin, to electro, to Wu-Tang vocal samples, to a motherfucking horse neighing! On top of that it's an incredible musical feat. Everybody from the harshest critic to the oldest old lady you know can enjoy it.”

For Jonti, it’s the ultimate expression of musical love. “It’s thousands of things that you love at breakneck speed, and it’s built on pure joy and love. It’s just something that’s really rare in an album.”

So how on earth do you follow that? “What goes into an album like Since I Left You is a lifetime of work, and they just want to make sure they get it right the next time as well.”