The Avalanches Wildflower

Twenty years ago, DJ Shadow released the hip-hop-meets-found-sound classic Endtroducing, which demonstrated the limitless potential of the Akai MPC60 sampler and caused more whiplash than the Southern California freeway system. Four years later, another milestone in pastiche sampling emerged from another debut album, The Avalanches’ Since I Left You, a retro, whimsical and celebratory counterpoint to Shadow’s more cerebral, late-night, urban futurism. Dance music, like hip-hop, had frequently employed sampling, but never with the density or dexterity exhibited on Since I Left You.

An interminably long 16 years later, follow-up Wildflower also demonstrates an otherworldly stitchwork of samples, now complemented by a slew of guest musicians (like Mercury Rev’s Jonathan Donahue) and vocalists (rapper Danny Brown), the resulting output sounding less like a fussed-over mixtape and more like a studio album.

The Avalanches’ exacting musical surgery isn’t Wildflower’s lone feat, though. Despite the litany of musical references one can savor or attempt to identify—from the Queens of the Stone Age interlude on “If I Was a Folkstar” to a children’s choir singing The Beatles’ “Come Together” during “The Noisy Eater”—the listener is mostly swept up by the album’s sense of groove, composition and narrative. “Because I’m Me” is escapist, ebullient soul pop, as is “Sunshine” (despite its eventual lyrical melancholy). Meanwhile, “Subways” manages to marry the Bee Gees’ “Warm Ride” with a 12-year-old punk artist from 1980, to tweak—but not disrespect—the conventions of disco. And then there’s the mantra-like “Saturday Night Inside Out,” which might end the Wildflower collage parade, but lingers to pleasurable effect long after. Can it last 16 years long? May we never find out.