Jigsaw: How The Avalanches assembled 'Since I Left You' from 3500 old records

The story of Since I Left You begins in Melbourne’s late-90s record rooms, where The Avalanches were a loose collective of teenage DJs turning second-hand vinyl into raw material for experimentation.

Robbie Chater, Tony Di Blasi and Darren Seltmann were shaped by hip-hop sampling and club culture, where turntables worked as instruments rather than playback devices. This was also the era when vinyl digging became a method of discovery, where discarded records were treated as unfinished musical language rather than nostalgia.

The Avalanches drew influence from Public Enemy’s dense sample layering and The Dust Brothers’ production style, but expanded this into long-form collage rather than isolated references. Since I Left You, released in 2000 arrived as their debut album, built from an estimated 3,500 vinyl samples processed through Akai hardware samplers and early sequencing systems.

Robbie Chater said, “We were trying to build something that felt like a journey, not a collection of songs,” describing the album’s central idea. Key fragments include “The Canyon of My Dreams” by The Mystic Moods Orchestra and “Everyday” by The Main Attraction, both reshaped into texture rather than recognisable samples.

The album arrived as sampling laws were tightening in late 1990s, after legal cases in the US made clearance expensive and restrictive for producers. That shift made large-scale sample-based projects increasingly difficult, placing Since I Left You in a rare position at the moment of its release. The album later won ARIA Awards for Breakthrough Artist and Best Dance Release, and was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize in the UK.

Its legacy lies in how it reframed sampling as reconstruction rather than borrowing, where fragments lose identity inside a continuous sound world. Debates around sampling often focus on legality or originality, but Since I Left You pushes the idea further. Every listen reveals new connections between vinyl fragments and production culture, making discovery part of the experience across generations.