The Avalanches, the enigmatic Australian sample-heavy electronic act, make a welcome return with the “We Will Always Love You.”
A floating, cosmic tune with a cracking beat, “We Will Always Love You” features Blood Orange, aka Devonté Hynes the British singer, songwriter and record producer formerly known as Lightspeed Champion.
Sampling “I’ll Take You Anywhere That You Come” by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, and the Roches’ “Hammond Song,” “We Will Always Love You” is the first new tune from The Avalanches since the long overdue Wildflower album release, in 2016.
The Aussie act emerged as one of the finest new talents anywhere on the planet with their 2000 debut LP Since I Left You, a cut-and-paste masterwork that peaked at No. 8 in the U.K. and No. 10 on Billboard’s Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart. The group toured in various guises (live and DJ sets) and with various lineups until the mid-2000s.
A follow-up was recorded and scrapped. And in 2013 a teaser, in the form of a remix of Hunters & Collectors’ “Talking to a Stranger.” Three years later, from seemingly out of nowhere, Wildflower, which went to No. 1 in Australia and No. 10 in the U.K.
“We Will Always Love You” is accompanied with a cryptic message on the “transcendent nature of music” and its endless reach across the universe.
The message reads in full: “Sometimes we receive a message. Telling us our music has been there; through dark times, loneliness, loss. There are no words to express how moving or profound this connection with you is. Because the music was born out of such moments itself, and so it is felt, by those with open hearts, on the same wavelength it was first created. Morse Code beamed and received by hearts and hearts alike. Our new record is about such journeys, from darkness to light. About life after (all kinds of) death. About the transcendent nature of music itself. Every voice ever played on the radio over the last 100 years now exists in the stars; the transmissions of these singers are forever floating around out there, lost in the cosmos, endlessly travelling. Tonight Smokey Robinson duets with Dev Hynes and The Roches. Those spirits are out there. We are each a tune, floating in space And this one’s for you.”
Stream “We Will Always Love You” below.