We chat to the undisputed sample kings of the universe.

You must know the story of The Avalanches, right? You know, the Melbourne outfit who made the genre-defying, critically acclaimed, groundbreaking LP Since I Left You – the record that used over 3000 samples, and thrust the collective into the spotlight around the world? The band that took 16 years to release their sophomore record, the much loved, instant classic, Wildflower?

Well you do now. And we caught up with multi-instrumentalist and founding member Robbie Chatter to squeeze as much information about their forthcoming third album, chat about the pros and cons of playing live, and relive their most meta sampling experience. Take a look at the interview below and catch The Avalanches spinning at Bad Friday – tickets here.

What can you tell us about the upcoming record? Where have the sessions been happening?

It’s all over the place, really. There’s sessions been happening in New York and LA, vocal sessions, mainly, and here in Melbourne. Most of the music’s been done here in Melbourne. I was told “don’t talk too much about it,” because we don’t know exactly when it will be done or come out… All I can say is that it’s just going very quickly, and it’s quite different to what we’ve done before. It’s really beautiful, to me.

Is it weird having to keep these kinds of things under wraps?

A little bit. I don’t feel like it needs to be or anything, and it’s nice to chat about what you’re up to. But I think the record label’s been burnt with us talking about Wildflower, and it didn’t materialize for so long, and it ended up frustrating people, I think. And they just wanna be able to do their job properly, when it’s done.

For me, it’s just natural to talk about it, and during the making of Wildflower we were very open about where we were at and what we were doing. We would get messages constantly on social media. People like, “I love you guys, but what are you doing? Should I give up hoping for another record?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpqm-05R2Jk

Do you feel like fans think they have some sort of right to ask you when it’s ready? No one’s hitting up U2 going “Come on, Bono, hurry the fuck up, mate.”

Well, yeah, but probably with good reason, because it took 16 years for Wilflower (laughs). U2 have a strong track record of delivering great records every three or four years or whatever. When we’re doing that, people will probably leave us alone.

We caught you with the full band at Sydney City Limits last year, and you guys are DJing at Bad Friday in April. Outside of the obvious, how is DJing different to playing with the full band for you guys?

It’s just much more free-form, more flexible. Most of the music [we play when DJing] isn’t ours, and I really love that, personally, because it’s playing records that I love, and it makes me happy. Often it can be an evening of music people might not know, but it’s done in that spirit of sharing a space together and sharing energy together and sharing a moment, and hearing strange, beautiful, beautiful music.

How often do you hear something and know it’s an Avalanches beat or horn/orcherstral section

Constantly. And this record’s been interesting, because we’re sampling stuff we’ve never really sampled before, but to us it’s still got something Avalanches about it, even though it sounds completely different to our other records. But it’s constantly what I do…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjfspM5sDIA

Is it just online, or is it like you’re walking down the street, or you see something or hear something, and you wanna use it?

A lot online now. A lot on YouTube, actually. But last night I heard something, there was a school outing or something in a park that I was walking past, and that sound of distant kids’ voices. I was just like, I wanted to record it on my phone. I’ve been looking for something like that.

We’re assuming you’ve got quite the vinyl collection? How big is it?

It’s small now, because I sold it all after Wildflower.

Really?

Yeah. It had been a lifetime of collecting, since I was a kid, and two records, two Avalanches albums, had come out of that collection, and there was so much. I had this moment, one day, of realizing I probably would never pull out half these records and listen to them ever again. They’re just possessions now.

So I kept maybe only 300 of my real favourites, and especially the ones I’ve used to make those albums, and then some other records that are really close to my heart, and then got rid of all the rest, just to make room in my life for new music to come in. And now it’s been a lovely experience of building up another small record collection, from the beginning. And this one might last for 20 years again, and then I’ll sell it, and then do it again. I don’t know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPIMfOIuEe4

Has there ever been a time when you obscurely met someone that you’ve sampled?

Chandra, who sung the ‘Subways’ samples on Wildflower, we met her. And she recorded that when she was 11 in New York, and we met her when we were touring the States, and she came and performed that song with us live. She’s a grown up now, and it was a really, really surreal experience, and I actually remember meeting her backstage for the first time, we both stood there and hugged, and we were like, “this is so strange and beautiful and such a weird feeling,” and we were both completely tripping out.

And then her daughter was with her, who is 11, she was the same age Chandra was when she made that song, and her daughter also performed with us live, so there was that other generation as well. There was the young Chandra, the vocal, in the sample, singing along with her daughter, and they were at the same age, and then her as well, and it was just a fucking trip. It was like time travel.

Other than Bad Friday, and working hard on the record, what have you guys got coming up?

Not a lot. We’re doing this Bad Friday thing because people have told us how much fun it is, but really we’re not doing shows, we’re just finishing the record. I’m going to LA to do a bit of work in March. It’s just album, album, album, which is a really nice time, I really enjoy it, just being a homebody and bumming around at home, and making music.

It’s a nice, quiet life, I really like it. It’s like the opposite of touring, which is also amazing, but it’s another extreme, it’s just mayhem, and a wild ride. I love being able to have those two different sides of life, and just when you’ve had enough of one, it’s time to go and do the other. I feel really lucky. At the moment I’m enjoying being an old man at home with my houseplants and listening to records.