Sampling the Avalanches’ Brilliant ‘We Will Always Love You’
The Avalanches (via TheVerge.com)
Fans of the Avalanches were shocked when the Australian duo announced a new album in September of last year, and for good reason – fresh releases from Robbie Chater and Tony Di Blasi are few and far between. The group’s debut album, 2000’s Since I Left You, garnered critical acclaim upon release and was hailed as a masterclass in sample-based music. However, the record’s follow-up failed to materialize for over a decade and a half, leaving Avalanches fans with radio silence. Throughout their prolonged absence from the public eye, Chater and Di Blasi worked tirelessly to create new material; however, their process was hindered by illness and the enormous hurdle of obtaining permission to use over three thousand new samples. When Wildflower was finally released in 2016, its continued commitment to extensive sampling was praised by critics and fans, including late arrivals such as myself – when I discovered Wildflower two years after its release, the hour-long psychedelic odyssey became my personal soundtrack for each and every road trip. However, the album took sixteen years to materialize. So why was its successor ready for release only four short years later? In Avalanches time, less than five years was the blink of an eye.
As listeners would soon learn, the short wait between Wildflower and the newly released We Will Always Love You was due in part to the group’s altered approach to composition. In an interview with NME shortly after the new album’s release, Chater lamented the time-consuming nature of plunderphonics, a genre that repurposes samples from existing works to create complex musical collages. Acquiring permission to use a single sample can be a lengthy and expensive process which, when added up over hundreds or thousands of samples, could delay the group’s return to the forefront of electronica and psychedelia. The group decided to instead supplement their crate-digging with increased collaboration: guests such as MGMT, Blood Orange, Denzel Curry, and Jamie xx appear on We Will Always Love You, adding their own flair to the hundreds of samples kaleidoscopically scattered throughout the album.
Although We Will Always Love You sees The Avalanches moving away from plunderphonics and the sample-heavy brand of dance perfected on Since I Left You and Wildflower, its results are no less compelling. The album’s elements of neo-psychedelia, trip-hop, and neo-soul – combined with lyrical motifs of light, space, love, and memory – evoke a dreamy nostalgia for memories not yet made and frontiers on the cusp of discovery.
The record’s first full song comes in the form of the glittering, trippy, and Blood Orange-assisted title track. Here, cascading piano runs and a slow tempo introduce trip-hop flavors to the song’s neo-soul bones. Meanwhile, Dev Hynes’ vocal performance is one of the most captivating earworms on the entire album, bordering on spoken word in between dense layers of sample-based harmonies. Immediately following is a stylistic changeup with “The Divine Chord,” a bona fide sunshine pop anthem. The song features colorful rhythm guitar courtesy of The Smiths’ Johnny Marr, as well as wistful vocals from MGMT that make for one of the catchiest refrains in the entire Avalanches catalog. Drawing upon lyrical motifs of space and dreams to illustrate the fading memory of a lost love, its melodies conjure a complex nostalgia that, despite being rooted in deep reverence for the past, brings excitement for an uncertain future. Leon Bridges picks up where MGMT leaves off, carrying these themes into the pulsing, sparkling grooves of “Interstellar Love.” It’s quite the sonic departure from Bridges’ work in soul but he sounds remarkably at home as his vocals guide the song’s driving synthesizers.
These three tracks are not only some of We Will Always Love You’s most charismatic and engaging moments, but also the epitome of what works so well about the record’s creative ethos: while the Avalanches have historically treated vocals as just one piece of a dynamic puzzle, here they go out on a limb and give them center stage. They bring their friends and newfound collaborators to the sonic forefront, even pushing artists such as Bridges beyond the stylistic boundaries of their own catalog. The result – the Avalanches’ typically dreamy approach to sampling, combined with the talents of a wide variety of guests – is simply magical.
Perhaps the most admirable quality of We Will Always Love You is how its sprawling, dynamic, and living character not only calls back to the best moments of the group’s previous work, but also expands their palette of sounds. Tracks like “Music Makes Me High” combine nu-disco with prominent samples of a busy and bustling crowd, simulating the idle chatter of a party in ways reminiscent of Since I Left You’s title track. Meanwhile, helicopter samples fade in and out of focus on “Take Care in Your Dreaming,” serving as a backdrop for blistering verses from Denzel Curry and Sampa the Great. This moment is particularly noteworthy because although the Avalanches are no stranger to hip hop (see their excellent work with MF DOOM, Camp Lo, and Danny Brown), the song marks the group’s first foray into trap-inspired percussion. Like the aforementioned “Interstellar Love,” the song embodies all of the most enthralling qualities of We Will Always Love You: the Avalanches continue to weave together lively and off-kilter samples while, in the final chorus, the guests trade bars with undeniable chemistry. It perfectly encapsulates the record’s collaborative beauty and desire to stretch the limits of an already diverse, career-spanning stylistic playbook. Flipping through these new pages – whether it’s the flowing, near-improvisational piano passages behind Pink Siifu’s verse on “Always Black” or the synthesizers that swirl around Rivers Cuomo’s vocals on “Running Red Lights” – provides proof that the Avalanches are as innovative as ever.
Although the songs vary greatly in length, the album’s length may be unwieldy to those unfamiliar with the Avalanches’ work – the duo offers 25 tracks to those willing to follow their vision. Songs such as “Music is the Light” and “Wherever You Go” feature fantastic ideas, but fall just short of justifying their runtime; meanwhile, transitional moments “Oh The Sunn!” and “Until Daylight Comes” end right as they work up a compelling, head-bobbing momentum. However, the beauty of We Will Always Love You is that it is never exceedingly tedious or predictable: only a bit long. Besides, even the moments that feel less essential are still dazzling and, upon repeated listens, may reveal new surprises to patient audiences. It’s a must-listen for fans of neo-psychedelia and electronic and, in typical Avalanches fashion, has left fans patiently waiting for the band’s next full-length release. If We Will Always Love You is any indication of their artistic journey (and release schedule), we can only hope that it won’t be too long.
Edited by Adam Light, editor of Reviews
Cover art by Shira Silver