The Clash’s Mick Jones, Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr and Bristolian trip-hop pioneer Tricky are among a host of British acts featuring on the latest album from psychedelic electro merchants The Avalanches. The Australian experimentalists upcoming LP We Will Always Love You will also include input from Ilford’s Blood Orange (aka Dev Hynes, or formerly, Lightspeed Champion); Newcastle-born folk veteran Vashti Bunyan; and London DJ and musician Jamie xx.
— The Avalanches (@TheAvalanches) November 13, 2020
We Will Always Love You is only the third studio album from The Avalanches, who have been active on the dance scene since 1997. The Melbourne outfit – headed up byfounding members Robbie Chater and Tony Di Blasi – enjoyed their greatest successes in the UK with their 2000 top ten LP Since I Left You. That album spawned a clutch of global hit singles, including the titular track, Electricity and the unforgettable, uncategorizable delight Frontier Psychiatrist.
In an interview with NME, the band have suggested the new record will mark a slight departure from the distinct, so-called ‘sampledelia’ sub-genre they have made their own over the years. Robbie Chater said “This record doesn’t sound exactly like what we’ve done before, and that’s probably the result of following up a sample-heavy epic album with another one and then just knowing we wouldn’t do another one like that. They’re brutal to make.”
Johnny Marr is no stranger to a leftfield collaboration, having teamed up with everyone from Billie Eilish to renowned Hollywood composer Hans Zimmer over recent years. His latest joint effort with The Avalanches – on a track which also features Connecticut indie-pop stars MGMT – comes amid speculation that he is also working on a fourth solo album. In August the former Smiths, Cribs and Modest Mouse man teased his followers on Instagram with the caption “Joe’s Corner. Crazy Face Factory. Album 4.”
Mick Jones can add The Avalanches to his own long list of collaborators: The Clash guitarist has previously recorded with Gorillaz, The Flaming Lips, The Wallflowers and Algerian musician Rachid Taha, among others. He will now appear on new Avalanches track We Go On alongside Californian multi-instrumentalist Cola Boyy, an artist Dazed magazine have described as a ‘disco crooner, songwriter and Marxist organiser’: an unlikely triad of qualities which will doubtless have attracted one of the key figures behind Sandinista!, The Clash’s legendary triple album which celebrates its 40th anniversary next month.
Tricky, who features on album track Until Daylight Comes, has also had a busy year in 2020. March’s 20:20 EP was followed in September by his fourteenth studio album Fall To Pieces, which Pitchfork described as producing “some of his most darkly moving music in years.” Not to be constrained by the English lockdown, the West Country rapper released another surprise EP – Doorway – last week.
Other artists featuring on The Avalanches’ new record include Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O, Weezer’s River Cuomo, Swedish singer-songwriter Neneh Cherry, and former The War on Drugs guitarist Kurt Vile. The track listing for We Will Always Love You – which is due for release on December 11th 2020 – is as follows:
1. Ghost Story (feat. Orono)
2. Song For Barbara Payton
3. We Will Always Love You (feat. Blood Orange)
4. The Divine Chord (feat. MGMT & Johnny Marr)
5. Solitary Ceremonies
6. Interstellar Love (feat. Leon Bridges)
7. Ghost Story Pt 2 (feat. Leon Bridges & Orono)
8. Reflecting Light (feat. Sananda Maitreya & Vashti Bunyan)
9. Carrier Waves
10. Oh The Sunn! (feat. Perry Farrell)
11. We Go On (feat. Cola Boyy & Mick Jones)
12. Star Song.IMG
13. Until Daylight Comes (feat. Tricky)
14. Wherever You Go (feat. Jamie xx, Neneh Cherry & CLYPSO)
15. Music Makes Me High
16. Pink Champagne
17. Take Care In Your Dreaming (feat. Denzel Curry, Tricky & Sampa The Great)
18. Overcome
19. Gold Sky (feat. Kurt Vile)
20. Always Black (feat. Pink Siifu)
21. Dial D For Devotion (feat. Karen O)
22. Running Red Lights (feat. Rivers Cuomo & Pink Siifu)
23. Born To Lose
24. Music Is The Light (feat. Cornelius & Kelly Moran)
25. Weightless
