Melbourne’s The Avalanches emerged as a blend of noise punk and hip-hop influences with an EP called El Producto in 1997.
The track I remember from that was called Rock City, which I think had one or two Beastie Boys samples. Dexta, their DJ, won the Australian championships for 3 years running and would go on to 2nd place in the world in 2000.
I was lucky enough to see them play one New Year’s Eve, just before the album Since I Left You was released in 2000/2001. It was a great show in a small, packed room.
This is the title track from that album, which Rolling Stone names the 8th best Australian album of all time.
There’s that dilemma, again
The band has such an original sound. I’ve watched and waited for another band whose music is mostly samples cut and pasted together and never found it again.
Frontier Psychiatrist will forever be in my party at ground zero playlist but this whole album is so damned good.
Hexstatic might be worth looking into. It is more electronic funk.