Back in 2000, I was part of a tape swap through a website (which is, actually, where I met Mary). As part of said tape swap, I ended up exchanging mixes with a girl in Australia whose handle reflected the title of a Nick Cave song. On her mix was a track from one of her favorite Aussie groups.
I fell in love with "Since I Left You" the moment I heard those pitched up soul vocals and am eternally grateful to the girl with whom I have since lost touch for introducing me to a piece of what would eventually become one of my favorite albums of this decade, if not of all time. I longed to play the track at a club, but there was no way I could play a tape over the soundsystem. I checked with store clerks constantly and searched Napster for my then favorite song. Nothing. A full year would elapse between the time Australian Girl sent me a cassette copy of "Since I Left You" and the Avalanches' debut cd of the same name actually made it to the U.S. record market, apparently due to the amount of time it took to clear the samples that constitute every note of this album.
Shortly after the release of the album, Carlos and I saw the Avalanches spin at some club in Santa Monica, the name of which escapes me at the moment. Shortly after that, the crowds abandoned "Since I Left You" and "Frontier Psychiatrist" for "Fuck the Pain Away" and "Emerge." MTV2 ditched the "Frontier Psychiatrist" video in favor of repeated reality programming. Actually, M2 ditched all but its hip-hop collection in favor of non-video fare, but that's another story. Then, the Avalanches disappeared off of the smoking patio radar before the band could even mimic the success they had in other parts of the world. While the Avalanches still DJ, according to their website, they have not released a single since 2002 and Since I Left You remains the band's sole full-length. In the meantime, Kanye gets all the credit for speeding up sampled soul vocals. I can't stand him.