Frontier Psychiatrist
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Frontier Psychiatrist

"Frontier Psychiatrist" is a song by Australian electronic music group the Avalanches. It was released on 21 August 2000 as the second single from the group's debut album Since I Left You. Produced by Avalanches members Robbie Chater and Darren Seltmann, under their production alias Bobbydazzler, the track is built around many sampled elements, much like other tracks from its parent album. Samples include prominent vocal samples of the sketch "Frontier Psychiatrist" by comedy duo Wayne and Shuster, and an orchestral background sourced from an Enoch Light version of the composition "My Way of Life" (1968).

Upon release, it peaked at number 18 on the UK Singles Chart and number 49 in the group's native Australia, becoming their first single to enjoy commercial success. "Frontier Psychiatrist" was well received by music critics, who praised the Avalanches' use of samples.

According to group members, "Frontier Psychiatrist" was not planned beforehand by the group and in their words, "happened from us just messing around." Group members Robbie Chater and Darren Seltmann were driving figures in the production of the album, spending months scouring Melbourne's "old record stores for old records" and spending hours sampling music from the records they found to create. The duo primarily worked with a Yamaha Promix 01 and Akai S2000 samplers. Dexter Fabay, turntablist and keyboardist for the band, brainstormed the idea for "Frontier Psychiatrist", and his scratching is heard prominently on the track.

"Frontier Psychiatrist" is built around several elements sampled from other music; Chater and Seltmann, who produced the track, sampled music from several vinyl records in the production and creation of Since I Left You. The track also makes prominent use of scratching done by the band's turntablist Dexter Fabay.

The prominent orchestral sample heard throughout the track is sourced from a recording by the Enoch Light Singers of the 1968 composition "My Way of Life", originally composed by Bert Kaempfert, Herbert Rehbein and Carl Sigman.

The track also contains several vocal samples of Canadian comedy duo Wayne and Shuster, the most prominent of these samples taken from the duo's comedy routine "Frontier Psychiatrist", as well as the John Waters movie Polyester.

Only the aforementioned three samples are credited in the liner notes of Since I Left You; various other uncredited samples are used in the track, with sources ranging from Harvey Mandel's 1968 cover of the spiritual "Wade in the Water" and comedy routines by Flip Wilson, to sketches from Sesame Street and Maurice Jarre's main theme from Lawrence of Arabia.

The closing mariachi band plays "El Negro Zumbón", first performed by Flo Sandon's, who doubles Silvana Mangano in the 1951 movie Anna.

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