Not news by any stretch of the imagination, but in the ongoing absence of a bootleg copy on wax I thought we’d shed a bit more light on this wicked drop from The Avalanches. Effectively known as ‘Stalking To A Stranger‘ it is in fact officially Hunters & Collectors – ‘Talking To A Stranger given a ‘Planets Collide’ remix, done for a dedication album that dropped last year.
To be perfectly honest, I’m not a Hunters & Collectors fan in the slightest. I can name one song, but only because it annoys the hell out of me, and for this reason I won’t be weighing in on the album Crucible: The Songs Of Hunters & Collectors except to say I’ll probably never find time to listen to the whole thing.
This track however, is a proper piece of magic. We first spotted the clip on Rage many months ago, and since have dedicated an unhealthy amount of time to digitally rotating it online and on the iPod.
Not going to weigh in on The Avalanches’ sophmore album release conversation, but will share one story regarding a record store where it’s claimed that over 60% of the first album came from. Four or five years ago I was record hunting around Brighton, and found myself in The Record Album store, chatting to it’s owner George Ginn, who’s been running it from behind the counter since 1960.
The store was open in 1948 in fact, and the cash register has no doubt been there ever since. The store’s been frequented by the likes of Amon Tobin (one of his best customers) and Thom Yorke, but upon hearing I was Australian a few interesting things happened.
1) I was awarded a free 7″ of ‘Think’ by Aretha Franklin merely due to my nationality
2) George pulled a record for me to shed some light on, knowing only that it was Australian. To this day I regret not buying (I was over my limit already), as it was the soundtrack to a little known Ginger Meggs movie from the early-80s.
and
3) He asked me if I’d heard of a group called The Avalanches.
On the third point, he informed me that The Avalanches had spent a day or so in his back room digging through plates, evidently buying up mostly lounge-music. A little while later he received a copy of the CD in the mail, and was pleased to find upon listening that the vast majority of samples had come from their day of digging in his shop.
If you’re ever in Brighton be sure to stop by the store and chat to George.