Since I Left You
Studio album by  the Avalanches
Released	27 November 2000
Recorded	1999–2000
Studio	Softlight Bistro and Wow Sound, Melbourne Westfalia Beachhouse, Sorrento
Genre	Dance  sample delia  disco  plunderphonics  art pop
Length	60:39
Label	Modular
Producer	Robbie Chater  Darren Seltmann
The Avalanches chronology
El Producto (1997) Since I Left You (2000) Wildflower (2016)
Singles from Since I Left You
"Electricity" Released: 13 September 1999 "Frontier Psychiatrist" Released: 21 August 2000 "Since I Left You" Released: 5 February 2001 "Radio" Released: 23 July 2001

Since I Left You is the debut studio album by Australian electronic music group the Avalanches, released on 27 November 2000 by Modular Recordings. It was produced by group members Robbie Chater and Darren Seltmann (under the pseudonym Bobbydazzler), and samples extensively from various genres. The album was recorded and produced at two separate, near-identical studios by Chater and Seltmann, exchanging audio mixes of records they sampled.

After the album's positive reception in Australia, the duo considered an international release – its date was held back until 2001 in the United Kingdom and North America and appeared in slightly altered forms. The delay and changes occurred so that the group could obtain permission to use the samples or use replacements. Four singles were released from the album: "Electricity", "Frontier Psychiatrist", "Since I Left You", and "Radio". The group promoted the album by organising headlining tours in Australia, Europe and the United States.

Since I Left You was acclaimed by critics. It peaked in the top 30 on the ARIA Albums Chart, number 12 in Norway, number eight on the UK Albums Chart and, in the United States, at number ten on the Top Electronic Albums chart and in the top 40 on the Top Heatseekers chart. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2001, it won in four categories: Breakthrough Artist – Album, Best Dance Release, Producer of the Year for Bobbydazzler, and Breakthrough Artist – Single for "Frontier Psychiatrist". Since I Left You became one of the best-reviewed albums of the 2000s, and was listed at number ten in the book 100 Best Australian Albums.

Style and themes

Since I Left You was originally developed to be a concept album. Chater described its initial theme as a love story, "an international search for love from country to country. The idea of a guy following a girl around the world and always being one port behind. And that was just because we had all these records from all over the world, and we'd like to use all that stuff." The concept album idea was abandoned when the group felt they should not make their themes too obvious. The album's sound was in response to dance music at that time, that Chater felt was "about big drums, big production: think of a record like the Chemical Brothers "Block Rockin' Beats", with those amazing drums, and how huge those records sounded". The Avalanches felt their early music could not compare to that sound and desired a recording with less bass that was influenced by 1960s music such as the Beach Boys and Phil Spector.

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	89/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Alternative Press	8/10
Entertainment Weekly	B
The Guardian
NME	9/10
Pitchfork	9.5/10
Q
Rolling Stone
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
Spin	9/10

Seltmann and Chater did not initially think that Since I Left You would receive much attention. However, the album garnered widespread critical acclaim from the music industry. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, it received an average score of 89, based on 21 reviews. It became one of the best reviewed albums of 2000, as well as being the highest rated dance album on that site. The album peaked in the top 30 on the ARIA Albums Chart and number 12 in Norway on the VG-lista Top 40 Albums Chart. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2001, the Avalanches won four awards from nine nominations, including Breakthrough Artist – Album, Best Dance Release and Producer of the Year (for Chater and Seltmann aka Bobbydazzler) for Since I Left You. The fourth award win was for the related single "Frontier Psychiatrist" as Breakthrough Artist – Single.

Christian Ward of NME hailed it as "a joyous, kaleidoscopic masterpiece of sun-kissed disco-pop", and Andy Battaglia from The A.V. Club called it "a psychedelic disco fry-up", while Andy Kellman of AllMusic called it one of the most intimate and emotional dance records that is not vocal-based. Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle found the album as surprising as "Primal Scream's life-changing Screamadelica was a decade ago. It's downright shocking how fun this is". Pitchfork's Matt LeMay credited the Avalanches for developing a "unique context" for the songs without compromising their original "distinct flavor" and said that the album "sounds like nothing else" because of how the samples are employed rather than their quality or volume. Q magazine's Gareth Grundy remarked that its clever music is delivered as engagingly as "more conventional dance sounds" and that the album "finally fulfils sampling's original promise" of producing new, extraordinary sounds from artfully appropriated pieces of existing songs. Amy Bell of Drowned in Sound praised it as one of the year's best albums.

Robert Christgau of The Village Voice was less enthusiastic and said that the Avalanches deliver "the long-promised new-songs-from-old-songs trick, in which untrackable samples are stitched together until they mesh into compelling music that never existed before. Unfortunately, the music in question is string-section disco." Stylus Magazine's Tyler Martin felt that the tracks lack innovation, nuance, and rhythmic complexity, but that several of them are exceptional. The website later placed the album at number 16 on their list of top 50 albums from 2000 to 2005. In a retrospective review for The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, Michaelangelo Matos praised the Avalanches' balance of "the familiar and obscure" through their sampling techniques and their "playful, airy grooves", as well as the album's "surprisingly resonant emotional core".

Accolades

Since I Left You was placed in some year-end polls. Pitchfork placed Since I Left You at number three in their top twenty albums of 2001 poll and number 10 on their list of top 200 albums of the 2000s, declaring the album "a masterpiece of mood-setting that riffs off an ideal where getting on an airplane and landing in another corner of the world was the most exotic thing a person could do." Q listed it as one of the best 50 albums of 2001. The album was voted the 11th best album of the year in The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll for 2001. In 2008, the Australian newspaper The Age assembled a panel of experts ranging from its own critics and music journalists to musicians, broadcasters, record shop owners and band managers to pick a list of definitive fifty Australian albums. Since I Left You was included on this list with Chris Johnston declaring the album to be "a beautiful piece of musical art made entirely from samples." Since I Left You was placed at number six on The Daily Telegraph's list of "50 most influential Australian albums ever". Resident Advisor declared it to be the seventh best album of the decade. NOW Toronto called the album a "sampledelic classic".

On Slant Magazine's "Best of the Aughts" list, the album was placed at number six out of one-hundred. Reflecting on the album's reception, Chater felt it was well received because "It's light-hearted and fun to listen to and there is depth there as well. There are some sadder moments that I think has made it resonate and made it last. It does sound like a 23-year-old kid in his bedroom making a record to me, but you can hear that innocence and joy in the discovery of finding all those sounds. So that was kind of infectious for people." In October 2010, it was listed at No. 10 in the book, 100 Best Australian Albums. Philip Sherburne, writing for Rhapsody, said that "along with DJ Shadow's Endtroducing, this is one of plunderphonic music's greatest LPs". The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In 2019, the album was ranked 34th on The Guardian's 100 Best Albums of the 21st Century list. In December of 2021, the album was listed at no. 8 in Rolling Stone Australia's '200 Greatest Albums of All Time' countdown.

Track listing

Where appropriate, the writers of the sampled material are credited alongside the Avalanches' members.