It might make us feel old and retroactive and closer to death but if there was ever a “perfect time” to reissue The Avalanches’ debut album, Since I Left You, it would be now. And not because ten years is a logical milestone or long enough for us to tolerate naval gazing. It is (and not a day less!), but it also reminds us that the long gestating followup may drop sometime this year or in the remaining four years it has on the Chinese Democracy album lease. There’s also the whole nostalgia aspect. Even though you’re immeasurably different to the person you were when you first heard this (you wore hemp bracelets and cargo shorts maybe??) Since I Left You continues to feel both ageless and alien in its construction, like a fully formed natural monument scientists can’t explain or penetrate. People tend to worship such things. More recently a panel of industry experts anointed it the greatest Australian album of all time and triple j listeners look poised to concur, so there’s that.
So then, in the music equivalent of retiring a jersey to crystallize in the rafters FOREVER, Modular have reissued Since I Left You with a swag of rarities, remixes and other extra material. The timing is perfect. The redux comes with the original eighteen track album plus new remixes from El Guincho, MF Doom, Canyons, Black Dice and Jackson and his Computer Band, Avalanches remixes of others, early unreleased b-sides, demo tracks and other rarities. To celebrate, Modular are streaming a dusty Stereolab remix of Since I Left You’s mythic title track. Super satisfying for a vinyl rip of a remix of a song that had like a thousand samples*.
*unverified
The Avalanches – Since I Left You (Stereolab Remix) by modularpeople
