Wildflower
Another upset: the Welsh KO’d the Belgians. In their semifinal they’ll face the Portuguese, who’ve yet to win in 90 minutes.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
On July 8 the Avalanches will put out their first album since, what, 2000? – and to my great delight the tracks released so far are distinctly like certain passages of Since I Left You.
Ignore for a moment the sounds, the samples, and consider how, structurally and rhythmically, the new tracks parallel the earlier ones.
“Subways” condenses “Close to You,” “Diner’s Only,” and “A Different Feeling”;
“Colours” is like “Electricity”;
and of course in many ways “Frankie Sinatra” is like “Frontier Psychiatrist.”
(All these tracks – old and new – are mid-album. We’ve yet to learn how Wildflower will start up or wind down.)
I don’t think these parallels are accidental (“Fr”-“S”; “Fr”-“Ps”). The Avalanches have been trying for sixteen years to make something that approximates the feel, the mood, that was so loved about Since I Left You, and this goal has proved most elusive. And so here and there they’re making the albums’ similarities extra-conspicuous.
The new tracks are quite good in themselves, but they also show how difficult it is to re-do what first was achieved with comparatively little effort. It is no small victory to copy, accurately, what was done by free association.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
On July 8 the Avalanches will put out their first album since, what, 2000? – and to my great delight the tracks released so far are distinctly like certain passages of Since I Left You.
Ignore for a moment the sounds, the samples, and consider how, structurally and rhythmically, the new tracks parallel the earlier ones.
“Subways” condenses “Close to You,” “Diner’s Only,” and “A Different Feeling”;
“Colours” is like “Electricity”;
and of course in many ways “Frankie Sinatra” is like “Frontier Psychiatrist.”
(All these tracks – old and new – are mid-album. We’ve yet to learn how Wildflower will start up or wind down.)
I don’t think these parallels are accidental (“Fr”-“S”; “Fr”-“Ps”). The Avalanches have been trying for sixteen years to make something that approximates the feel, the mood, that was so loved about Since I Left You, and this goal has proved most elusive. And so here and there they’re making the albums’ similarities extra-conspicuous.
The new tracks are quite good in themselves, but they also show how difficult it is to re-do what first was achieved with comparatively little effort. It is no small victory to copy, accurately, what was done by free association.