electronic/sampledelia/plunderphonics/mostly-instrumental almost-hip-hop

Finally! It's here, and it's great. Like the first one, it feels like a perfect DJ set at an incredible house party with your best friends and also a bunch of randoms, and you're exactly the right level of intoxicated. Cuts up an insane array of samples & puts them back together into a new whole (plus a decent bit of live & synthed instrumentation to fill it all in). Unlike the first one, this one's got a stacked guest list. Thankfully everyone integrates seamlessly into what's very definitely an Avalanches album. And while it's still mostly very fun and upbeat, there are more quiet stretches and a touch more melancholy/longing than #1. Grown up a bit, but not too much.

RIYL: Cut Chemist, DJ Shadow, Steinski (30 years later), Koushik (the reflective moments), Paul's Boutique, beach parties for record nerds [and maybe: Diplo's old DJ sets but (way) more intricate, or Girl Talk but smoother and less showy, and less poppy than either]

FCC clean! (edited for radio)

1. quiet atmospheric short intro 0:14
2. starts quiet, little kid belting soul track along w/ fuzzy instr in background, then opens up and gets rich, kid's happy the groove came in. sunny strings and rhythm guitar soul loops, shuffling breakbeat. dope nonsensical verses from camp lo in classic form. kid on the hook. luxurious tv show bridge, long fade into next. 4:12
3. funky bouncing carnival beat with taunting chorus ("frankie me boy, you don't know, you haven't got the voice to sing calypso"). gypsy jazz winds and crowd sounds weave in and out as texture. relatively subdued (so not that subdued) danny brown verse, followed by a quiet loopy/brainy verse from mf doom in fine form, almost opposite styles but all gels well. cue strings, fade to traffic. 3:44
4. disco loop run through filter and plundered for texture under other percussion fidgets, then gets full, chopped up with kids singing, 808 cowbell echoes. later: voices get echo, main loop gets submerged again. 3:10
5. direct continuation of prior, keeps playing with the filter, stays submerged, gets brighter, vocal samples and heavier rhythm section slowly ease in as filter bounces around, long fade out. 2:06
6. flips to different submerged beat, tape deck clicks, beat fades up. still propulsive, but a bit of melancholy, hazier/synthier, traffic rushes by in the background, channel surfing from other room. dr info says it reminds her of the leaving the club scene in "lost in translation". quiet slightly-lovelorn vocal in second half. disintegration to reverb, distant guitar and chatter from shore. 4:33
7. kaleidoscopic rising samples and vocals, bright. laid back steady acoustic drum loop, not fast, but a little insistent. fuzzy surf rock vocals throughout. nice intermittent backmasking of some of the melodic samples throughout. 3:32
8. atmospheric interlude. slow harmonica, backmasked synth tones, all sunny, a little sinister, sort of boards of canada-ish. 2nd half, kid slowly talks about flying, and then morning weather. 1:58
9. morning cartoons, tumbling drums and beatboxing give way to biz markie doing food-centric throwback rap. swirling looney tunes feel, sound effects, brief "come together" loop sped up and spliced in intermittently. 3:14
10. jangly piano, surreal cereal ad, gives way to swaying/swooning guitar and strings and maybe quiet theremin. 1:14
11. rising vocals sing the title, sunny slowly rising melody, drums come in around 1:00. playful loopy cut up track, keeps a good groove even when the drums aren't up, cuts up a bunch of different melodic elements but is a totally coherent whole. 3:48
12. remnants of prior track shift slowly into slightly punchier hip-hop beat, quick don't-give-a-fuck verse, then gets sunny again but keeps stronger beat. stopped by the police at the end, party's over, party's back on. 2:30
13. ambient interlude. quiet "ohooh" and banjo loop gets fuller, gets quieter, brief vocal snippet. 0:54
14. starts punchy and quickly gets distant, wistful blurry woodwinds, toy piano fragments, vocal echoes and oohs and ahhs. main loop from next slowly creeps in at end. 1:56
15. trippy. drums crash in, loping but chunky, warped disney-esque vocal loop. woozy loopy vocal and melodic samples float over insistent but chill rhythm. sweet high extended vox samples in middle. gets a little sunnier, drums drop out, danny brown delivers low-key but increasingly urgent bouncing verse over shifting acoustic guitar and accordion loops. cooler less busy alternate version of opening loops closes it out. 2:59
16. short quiet interlude, sunny, bouncing jangling loops with soft indistinct vocals, claps. 0:41
17. mellow soul loops and synth blips and a bit of filtered flute over med tempo bouncy drums. upbeat but very mellow. filter in all the right places, busy but very playful, quintessential avalanches. 3:37
18. unstable loops tumble and decay into one another, slow swaying, sunbleached, vaguely malfunctioning. nice outro to 17. 1:34
19. sunny swaying loops of the prior track shift and gel into something a little more stable, with hopeful high sung vocals over slightly off-kilter melodies and plucked string fragments. 3:55
20. light pulsing synth tone over gentle fuzzy acoustic guitar, gauzy shuffling drums, slowly bouncing bassline. slow quiet accordion fills it out later, drums come and go and come back. raspy/gravelly female vox. a night of bumming around and getting into scrapes and figuring out where to hang. bittersweet, but more sweet. 4:32
21. fuzzy surfy syllables shimmer under father john misty giving smidgens of oblique ennui. lilting guitar samples, mellow bassline. shuffling drums, med tempo but insistent, fills out and pares back and fills out. 4:59

recommended: 2, 3, 6, 15, 4 (4&5), 20, 17 (17&18), 21