Electronica from Down Under

Ask anyone to name the most groundbreaking figures in electronic music, and he’ll more likely than not look to Europe for the answer. It is, after all, home to the world’s most recognizable studio wizards, from robo-funk androids Daft Punk to drum & bass icon Roni Size and the ever-mad scientist, Aphex Twin. Electronic music is a source of national pride in the United Kingdom, Belgium and Germany, boasting a rich history and diverse musicians that continue to bring challenging, unprecedented sounds into the world.

All the more reason, then, to marvel at what the Avalanches have accomplished. Not only are they the best new band in recent memory, having crafted a stunningly original album that is equal parts sublime dance and luscious pop, but they hail from Australia, a continent well known for bands like INXS and Silverchair but a total no-show when it comes to mind-blowing dance music. Last week’s domestic release of Since I Left You, one of the year’s finest records for sure, was practically invisible, considering the boatloads of critical hype and acclaim this sextet have been enjoying since the album first debuted a year ago. The Avalanches’ sound is uncompromising but utterly accessible, pure dance music that trainspotters, indie rockers and hip-hop heads can enjoy on the same level. With the group’s sheer ingenuity and universal appeal (the sound of pure happiness is hard to dislike), perhaps dance music will finally get the widespread acceptance in America that it has always enjoyed across the Atlantic.

It’s easy to see why the value of dance music as art continues to come under question. As music designed to move first and think second, it’s seemingly all visceral thrills and no soul. Melody, that time-honored indicator of “soul,” is extraneous in the art of beat-building. In dance music, song structure is irrelevant, for at its home on the floor, there is neither need nor desire for a beginning and end; it’s all mixed together. Without something to latch onto—a hook, a chorus, a person—-dance music simply exists, providing nothing other than its own pulse. Hordes of indignant listeners and curmudgeonly rock critics have rallied against the apparent coldness and artificiality of disco, as well as sonic offspring like house, techno, and breakbeat. Yet dance music has always had a unique, innate “soul” of its own. The humanity, or relevance, that it’s often accused of lacking is not so much expressed in lyrics or notes, but instead lies in the exuberant rhythms and beauty of its infinitely nuanced construction. Dance music is carefully crafted sound as architecture, but constantly in motion and change. By nature, unfortunately, it seems incompatible with the instant-gratification needs of MTV and mainstream radio, which cater to those with short attention spans—that is, the record-buying public at large.

Still, two major electronic movements in recent memory have served as wake-up calls to America: the current trendiness of rave culture, led by superstar DJs and corporate entities, and 1997’s “electronica” craze. The latter saw a flurry of sensationalist stories in music magazines that envisioned the rock paradigm being overtaken by a legion of keyboard-wielding techno-freaks, in some kind of premillennial musical cyborg invasion. The truth was that artists like Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers themselves represented a rock-happy crossover breed, integrating elements from rave culture in order to fashion radio-friendly pop music, and that meanwhile, the music’s core stayed in the domain of underground record labels.

More recently, however, notions of faceless bedroom producers, vinyl culture and spinning records as performance have become commonplace, thanks to mass marketing and overall cool factor. The downer this time is that, unlike thrilling chart-toppers like “Firestarter” and “Setting Sun,” the music in the limelight is barely deserving of notice. Most popular are formulaic, cheap-rush trance that any talentless hack with a computer can cough out, and its dry counterpart “progressive” house, the style championed by purists like John Digweed.

Which brings us back to the Avalanches and why they are a big deal. Here are artists that know the joy of a simple groove that is tweaked, built upon and mutated endlessly, and who apply it to full hedonistic effect. They are the genuine article, unlike Moby and BT, who seem obsessed with making comfortable, bite-sized pop confections . Yet the beats are nearly buried under lush tapestries of melody and the human voice: sweet guitars, soaring strings, flutes and whistles, tinkling piano keys, sung choruses, beatbox, random chatter. Their incredible prowess at arranging complex layers of unorthodox and delightful sound-bites with satisfying house and breakbeats amounts to amazingly compelling dance music. With a better command of both funk and melody than your average Tall Paul van Oakendyk, one wishes the Avalanches would take over Ibiza with an army of dusty records and their brand of sun-drenched bliss.

For those who snagged it on import, Since I Left You was undoubtedly the soundtrack to the summer. As an anonymous voice puts it, “Welcome to Paradise”—a tour-de-force of variations on “happy,” it compels you to discard your troubles and obligations and simply enjoy the moment. Also present is a more elusive touch of nostalgia which lingers long after one stops listening. This isn’t the stilted soul typically employed by dance subgenres in need of validation (deep house, atmospheric jungle, R&B-flavored 2-step); it’s an utterly original take on naïve optimism, life’s simple pleasures and escaping to the past. Listening to Since I Left You is like being curled up with a soul mate while floating through the clouds and never looking down.

The album begs to be heard all the way through.

Continuously mixed, it is a long, undulating stream of sample and beat alchemy that peaks repeatedly, comes down smoothly and surges forward again before finally ending on a chilled refrain of the opening theme. The transitions are so smooth that it’s impossible to tell when songs start and end; at first a woman announces that “Since I left you / I’ve found the world so new;” five tracks later we end up in the disco, where a ragga emcee is mashing it up with De La Soul in “Flight Tonight.” Still later, an innocent cruise arrives at a deranged world of psychotic schoolchildren, cowboys and Indians and talking parrots, in the turntablist cut-up anthem “Frontier Psychiatrist.” With all its painstakingly woven samples—over 900, including the first-ever legal Madonna sample (from “Holiday,” no less)—Since I Left You is the definitive Endtroducing… of dance music. Like DJ Sjadow’s bleak hip-hop masterpiece, it is a postmodern collage in which something wonderful is invented from scraps of nothing. But far from being a threatening cut-n-paste dystopia, this music wraps itself lovingly around your ears, the warm crackle of vinyl always audible in the mesh.

The Avalanches entered at a perfect moment. Faceless producers have been refining and reinventing the forlorn soul of Detroit techno and Chicago house for more than a decade. While so much dance music continues to fashion itself around their paradigm, perhaps it’s time for another revolution. The Avalanches aren’t bringing the soul back to electronic music; they are giving it a new one.