[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_avalanches_3583.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Avalanches above, business continues below...]]

->''"That boy needs therapy..."''

The Avalanches are an Australian {{electronic music}} trio formed in 1997. Initially, they started out as a rock group called Alarm 115. The line-up had Robbie Chater on the keyboards, Tony Diblasi also on the keyboards, as well as handling bass and background vocals Darren Seltmann on lead vocals, and later Manabu Etoh on drums. Etoh would later be deported (The Avalanches actually named one of their songs after him), and eventually Alarm 115 disbanded.

After the parting of Alarm 115, they used some old vinyl records they bought to make a demo tape consisting of 30 songs called ''Pan Amateur''. A new group was formed in 1997 that had Chater, Diblasi, Seltmann, and new addition Gordon [=McQuilten=] on keyboards to play the tracks live in concert. Their first four shows were played under [[IHaveManyNames various names]],[[note]]Swinging Monkey Cocks, Quentin's Brittle Bones, and Whoops Down Syndrome. No, really.[[/note]] and it wasn't until their fifth show that they finally became The Avalanches. This name is actually a ShoutOut to the 1963 album ''Ski Surfin' with The Avalanches'' by a surf rock band also called The Avalanches.[[note]]Fun fact: a giant replica of the vinyl pressing of ''Ski Surfin' with The Avalanches'' appears in the video for "Frontier Psychiatrist" as another ShoutOut.[[/note]]

Their debut single "Rock City" was released in September 1997, and their debut EP ''El Producto'' (which was actually a rap EP) was released later that year in December. The EP was so successful that Steve Pavlovic signed them to his new label Modular Recordings in the following year. Another EP called ''Undersea Community'' was released in 1999 -- [[NoExportForYou UK-exclusive, though.]]

The Avalanches started work on their debut album ''Music/SinceILeftYou'' in mid-1999, using the WorkingTitle ''Pablo's Cruise''[[note]]which would later become the title of one of the songs[[/note]]. They finally finished it in early 2000, but the release was [[ScheduleSlip delayed]] due to attempts to get the album's many [[{{Sampling}} samples]] cleared. The album was finally released in Australia in November 2000 (America and the UK got it in 2001), along with a mixtape named ''Gimix'' that served as sort of a preview of the album, along with mixing in some of the samples used on it and the group's personal favorite songs.

They started work on a second album...in 2005. There had been many announcements of the album's development throughout this time period, but no release date was permanently set. They ''did'' reveal [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XTrz0yvxe0 a demo track]] in 2012, though. In 2016, they released [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAMPOAfdH8U a video]] [[LampshadeHanging lampshading]] the album's long creation process, presumably to confirm that they were still working on it. They followed this up with the release of "Frankie Sinatra", featuring Music/DannyBrown and Music/MFDoom, confirming in an interview that the new album's title would be ''Music/{{Wildflower}}'', and [[https://www.facebook.com/theavalanches/photos/a.10150623460292273.387323.23154697272/10153484662442273/?type=3 making an announcement]] on their Website/{{Facebook}} page. After 16 years, their follow-up album was finally released on July 8, 2016 (with a release one week prior on Apple Music), with even more special guests including the likes of Music/BizMarkie, Toro y Moi, Camp Lo, Ariel Pink, and Jonathan Donahue.

In February 2020, they announced their third album and released a new single, "We Will Always Love You" featuring Blood Orange. [[https://www.nme.com/news/music/the-avalanches-have-finished-recording-their-new-album-2703009 The album was finished in July of that year]] and was released in December 2020, also under the title ''We Will Always Love You''.

!! Discography:

* ''El Producto'' (1997) (EP)
* ''Undersea Community'' (1999) (EP)
* ''Music/SinceILeftYou'' (2000)
* ''Music/{{Wildflower}}'' (2016)
* ''We Will Always Love You'' (2020)


!! I found these tropes so new:

* AllPsychologyIsFreudian: "Frontier Psychiatrist" has WordSaladLyrics that parody this trope (like referencing the FreudianCouch).
* BedsheetGhost: A chorus of these appear in "Frontier Psychiatrist"; one of them lifts her sheet to reveal an ordinary-looking elderly woman.
* BookEnds:
** Of sorts. The first track has the lines, "[[TitleDrop Since I left you]], I found a world so new." The last song, "Extra Kings" has these lines at the end: "I try but I just can't get you... ever since the day I left you..."
** ''We Will Always Love You'' is bookended with two limited instrumentals with spoken word by Orono Noguchi of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superorganism_(band) Superorganism]] fame, leaving behind a phone message with the almost-TitleDrop: "So I'll be here, I'll be with you, and I'll always love you."
* CelebritySong: "Frankie Sinatra."
* DarkerAndEdgier: ''We Will Always Love You'' is a much darker, moodier reflection of the band's usual plunderphonic sound, featuring overarching themes based around death, the afterlife, and the memories the departed have left behind. Whereas ''Since I Left You'' and ''Wildflower'' were largely triumphant, anthemic celebrations of the music they sampled, ''We Will Always Love You'' is framed more like a memoriam of singers and artists that were dead by the time of the album's creation.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: As mentioned above, ''El Producto'' is a Rap EP. The music is also a lot rougher compared to ''Since I Left You''.
* FadingIntoTheNextSong: Every song on ''Since I Left You'' does this, as do many of the songs on ''Wildflower'' and ''We Will Always Love You''.
* FrontierDoctor: The titular "Frontier Psychiatrist".
* GenreBusting: Many of the songs on ''Since I Left You'' are hard to define as a specific genre. The only exceptions are "Live At Dominoes" (HouseMusic), "Etoh" (Trip-Hop), and ''maybe'' "Frontier Psychiatrist" (Hip-Hop with a bit of classical).
* GenreRoulette: ''Since I Left You'' switches between House and Hip-Hop a lot. Conversely, ''Wildflower'' goes between hip-hop, house, and neo-psychedelia.
* GratuitousMariachiBand: One appears at the end of "Frontier Psychiatrist".
* IncrediblyLongNote: In "Sunshine". The 'i' in Sunshine goes on for longer than is humanly possible.
* ItWillNeverCatchOn: When making ''Since I Left You'', the group initially thought that no one would care about it.
* LastNoteNightmare: "Two Hearts In 3/4 Time," a [[SugarWiki/SweetDreamsFuel lovely, calming, bubbly song,]] ends with discordant blip sounds and chaotic drumming drowning out the rest of the song before segueing into "Avalanche Rock".
* LoopedLyrics: A few of their songs.
* {{Mondegreen}}: Enforced in the sampled recordings:
** The TitleDrop of "Since I Left You" is actually "since I ''met'' you."
** Mick Jones hears the chorus of "We Go On" (as taken from Music/TheCarpenters' "''Hurting'' Each Other") as "We go on fighting each other."
** "Wherever You Go" samples a line from Jimmy Osmond's "Wherever You Go ''Hugo''", which parses as "wherever you go, you go, we go too."
** Blood Orange sings the chorus to "We Will Always Love You" as "We will always love you, but that's not my fault," even though the original sample is "...but that's not ''the point''."
* MinisculeRocking:
** "Avalanche Rock" is the shortest song on ''SILY'' at 21 seconds long.
** "The Leaves Were Falling", the first track on ''Wildflower'', is even shorter (0:15).
** "Star Song.IMG" and "Pink Champagne" from ''We Will Always Love You'' clock in at 0:10 and 0:12 respectively.
* OneWomanWail: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] in the intro of "Electricity"; it's actually multiple wails by the same woman layered over each other.
* RadioSong: [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Radio."]]
* RecurringRiff: The flute sample heard in "Summer Crane" is reprised at the end of "Extra Kings".
* {{Sampling}}: Lots. In fact, ''Since I Left You'' was supposedly made using '''3,500''' samples.
* ShoutOut: During his guest appearance on "Noisy Eater", Biz Markie raps the line "I don't want no chicken 'cuz it tastes like wood," a reference to Music/TheSugarhillGang's "Rapper's Delight".
* SiameseTwinSongs:
** "Since I Left You" and "Stay Another Season". The drum loop heard throughout "Since I Left You" is carried over into "Stay Another Season", while the titular vocals of "Since I Left You" don't appear until halfway through.
** "Etoh" and "Summer Crane". Only the vocals of the former are carried over into the latter.
** There's an instance of Siamese ''Triplet'' Songs; "Flight Tonight," "Close To You" and "Diner's Only." The synth sample heard in "Flight Tonight" keeps playing for a bit while it goes into "Close To You," which in turn has a section near the middle that is sort of reprised in "Diner's Only." There's also a vocal sample used in "Close To You" that goes "Gentleman that's going round, turning the joint upside down" that can be heard in "Diner's Only," but a lot quieter.
** ''Wildflower'' has a Siamese ''Quintuplet'' song, with the opener "The Leaves Were Falling," "Because I'm Me," the album version of "Frankie Sinatra," "Subways" and "Going Home" all seamlessly leading into each other.
* SingerNamedrop: "We Go On" namedrops not only featured artists Mick Jones and Cola Boyy, but also [[Music/TheCarpenters Karen Carpenter]], who sings the original sample that the song is built around.
-->This is Cola Boyy\\
I'm here with Mick Jones\\
We send our love to you, Karen
* SpokenWordInMusic: Very common in their music, though the spoken word bits are usually (if not always) samples.
** Their two collaborations with David Berman, "Saturday Night Inside Out" (from ''Wildflower'') and "A Cowboy Overflow of the Heart" (a demo the band released as a free download) both consist of Berman reciting his poetry over music.
* StopAndGo: Done twice in "Close to You".
* SubliminalSeduction: Playing "Colours" backwards reveals these vocals (sampled from: "Where There's a Heartache" by The Sandpipers):
-->After the tears\\
True love can start\\
Where there's a heartache\\
There must be a heart
* VoiceClipSong: The main chorus of "Frontier Psychiatrist" samples different parts of an old Wayne and Shuster skit in this manner. The "verses," so to speak, also sample various spoken word records.
* AWildRapperAppears:
** In "Flight Tonight", with a sampled appearance from the Saian Supa Crew.
** "Frankie Sinatra", with a feature from both Music/DannyBrown and Music/MFDoom.
** Brown returns on "The Wozard of Iz", and Biz Markie features on "The Noisy Eater".
* WordSaladLyrics: "Slow Walking" and "Everyday". Also, pretty much all of ''El Producto''.
* WordSaladTitle: The three names the group had before settling on "The Avalanches".
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