Ex-Avalanches member Gordon ‘Gordy’ McQuilten has shared a never-before-heard song from the band’s debut album ‘Since I Left You’.
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The track, ‘One Kiss’, is reportedly the first taste of a recently re-discovered four-track EP that McQuilten had recorded in 2000, the year ‘Since I Left You’ was released, while The Avalanches were waiting on sample clearances for their then-completed but unreleased debut album.
The release was announced by a friend of McQuilten’s via a Reddit post on the official Avalanches sub-Reddit. The friend, who uses the handle Yamaha_Superstar, helped McQuilten track down the lost songs and gave fans some context on how ‘One Kiss’ found its way onto the internet.
“Gordon McQuilten was one of the original Avalanchers from their inception in 1997 until late 2001, so basically the entire El Producto-SILY classic line-up era. Live he was on keyboards, samplers, bass, vox, etc. He was school mates with Tony and Robbie in Maryborough,” he began.
“What a lot of people don’t know was that he was also one of the producers. In around 2000 there was a six or so month period from when SILY was turned in to the record company and they were waiting for sample clearances, and he took some time out to record a 4 track EP in his home studio. It was basically his contribution to what was going to come after SILY, was kinda put to one side in the wake of SILY’s release, and when he left the band the tracks were more or less lost, or very few people knew of their existence.
The Avalanches. CREDIT: Grant Spanier/Press
“Cue 20+ years later, the tail end of COVID late last year, and I was over at his place with a mate fixing his PC. As an aside I mentioned his brother had told me about the aforementioned songs and I was keen to know if they 1) actually existed 2) I wanna hear them, now! Gordy assured me they did in fact exist, but they were burned on a CDR somewhere. He looked around his place and just as he was about to give up looking for them, he found a CDR copy he’d made of the songs in 2006.
“My mate and I were driving back from his and put the CDR on, and for the next 16 minutes we were speechless as our minds were blown by these awesome tunes. And this was the only copy of the songs in existence (as far as we knew). I got home, backed the CD up, called Gordy and said the EP was amazing and it needs to get out to the world.
“Anyway, we are currently working on how to release the EP properly and talking to various people and it could take a while. So while we are searching for a label that deals with sample heavy type of music (Stones Throw, we’re looking at you!!) we thought we’d go guerilla and give you a preview of the song ‘One Kiss’. Enjoy.”
The Avalanches’ critically-acclaimed debut album contained the breakthrough singles ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’ and ‘Since I Left You’. A release date for the EP has not yet been confirmed.
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