Their best work yet…
If there’s an Australian act that has transcended every possible limit of genre, feeling and sound, it’s without a doubt The Avalanches (made up of Robbie Charter and Andrew Seekers). Their sampling and electronic mastery has made for countless unforgettable moments over the years, crafting electrifying symphonies imbued with boundless emotion and scope that continually soothe the soul. They’re an absolute treasure of the Aussie music scene, and for real, we should be counting our lucky stars that we exist at the same time as the beautiful maestros.
Their latest album We Will Always Love You sees the duo take all of the growth, catharsis, and knowledge of the past four years and turn it into total perfection, reflecting it back to us through a veil of wonderful creation that simmers and bubbles to the spirit’s content. It’s a love letter to music, their fans and all things magic, and despite their monumental first two albums, their third might just be their best record yet.
Luckily, we were able to nail one half of the duo Robbie for a wholesome AF chat about the record, their fans, music and a thousand other fun things. Check it:
Doing prep for this interview I honestly didn’t know how to start. You cover so much with this record. It listens like a million journeys in one. Was that intentional? Or did that come about naturally when writing it?
Yeah you’re right, it does feel like a few different journeys! It’s kind of like an internal personal journey, but it’s also like a massive cosmic journey at the same time. I think it began with a personal idea to explore ourselves, but it ended up being a much bigger story, yeah.
What have the last four years been like for you guys? Your albums always feel so momentous and huge, I assume that comes from a flood of life-changing experiences. Is that accurate?
Yeah, definitely. I mean, the last four years… I’m trying to remember [laughs]. I guess we put out our second album Wildflower and that was huge for us, especially 16 years after our first album. And then we were touring a lot, and that was where we felt free to dream up our third album and make something completely different. That’s kind of where the thinking began, and then we began working with our collaborator, Andy Szekeres, and we just began trying to push our sound somewhere new.
Now that it’s about to be released into the world, how are you feeling? Is there any nervousness at all? Or are you excited to sort of gift it to the world after the craziness of 2020?
I’m just happy to get it out. The label were like, “You can put it out next year and delay it” but we just thought we need to get it out this year. It’s been a crazy year. It feels right for some reason.
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Now to dip into the album, it’s a mammoth. Not just track-listing wise but in terms of textures, themes and feelings. I feel like it’d be impossible to ever consider it done, consider there are so many facets and parts to it. When did you guys know you were finished? What was that moment like?
That’s a good question, because I don’t think I ever feel like its done. But we actually gave ourselves a deadline this time, because we’ve been known to take way too long in the past. So we gave ourselves a deadline and it was really stressful actually trying to wrap it up in time, and COVID was hitting. It was around March, so yeah, that’s when we knew it was done because we just had to hand it in. Normally I would keep working on it forever, you know? It’s always moving.
That leads into my next question. For a project as huge as this, is it ever truly done? Or is it just done for now? If that makes sense.
I think it’s just done for now. That makes perfect sense. There’s live versions of it later, people remix it, but also just because of the flow of music. Like, it’s made from old records we’ve sampled, and they’re just part of another record, so who knows what’ll happen to it in the future, you know?
You’re asking a lot of philosophical questions about life and existence on this album, did you get any of the answers whilst recording it?
I think some of them came from our own personal journeys beforehand, and that’s why we felt ready to make it. We’d grown a lot over the journey. I definitely learned a lot about, especially in a year when we’ve all been apart and in lockdown. Just the power of music to connect us all, and the power of love and positivity.
‘Reflecting Light’ is one of the highlights on the album but it also feels like the emotional heartbeat of the whole project. Thematically this album seems to take the bad and make the beautiful out of it, which you then reflect back to us. Is that accurate?
That is completely accurate. I’m so glad you said that, because that’s mine and Tony’s favourite track by miles. And working with Sananda was so amazing. It just feels like the sort of song we’ve never done before. It’s kind of deep but it’s very beautiful as well, and it’s turning … It’s that magical alchemy that turns pain into something beautiful or something. Yeah, we feel exactly the same. Thank you for saying that!
Expanding on that, you have a song titled ‘Music Makes Me High’, but the high you describe seems way more purer and longlasting. Can you just describe your connection to music? Can you put into words the high it gives you?
That’s interesting. I mean, that hook is an old sample that we found. There’s something so beautiful about what we get to do and discovering this beautiful music and it does make us high on a daily basis. But I think what it means to me is the power of music to connect us all, and often music is a way that we all reach for another state of consciousness or something higher, you know? Like, if there’s 200 people in a basement club at 3:00 a.m. or 100,000 people in a field, we’re all coming together, or even in church when people are singing, it’s always been a part of our search for something greater. That’s really beautiful.
I’m imagining this whole album to be a total soundtrack to someone’s high. Out of all the tracks, ‘Interstellar Love’ seems to be that song that would help guide the person out of the high back into the real world. What can you tell us about it?
I mean, that track for me is just … I just remember making it, which was a wonderful experience with Leon in Los Angeles. For me, that’s a real highlight because we’ve usually made records alone in our bedroom, so it was so cool for me to do that. But really like a big central part of this record is the love story between Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, and how they fell in love making the Voyager Golden Record. Their story really moved me and how Ann recorded her heart and brainwaves and put them on the Golden Record, and now they’re out there floating forever. For me, that just sort of sums up the power & wonder of love and music and the power of it all when we’re at our best as people.
I also wanna mention that you have Denzel Curry and Sampa The Great together on a song which is just a genius move. How did that come about? Was it by any chance seeing them do Like A Version together?
Did they really!? I didn’t know that. Oh, wow. That’s amazing. There’s three main voices on that song, and Tricky was on it first, actually. That gave it this beautiful atmosphere. And then we met Denzel in Sydney and worked on the track, and he jumped onboard. And then it just didn’t feel finished. We were like, “Who is powerful enough and spirited enough to take this even to another level after Denzel?”
Sampa was the only person we could think of, and then we were really bummed because she was in India at the time, and we weren’t going to be able to make it work and that deadline I told you about was approaching, and then somehow she was like, “No, I can do it. I’ll find a studio.” That was like the last vocal we did for the album and yeah, it was so cool to have their voices together on the song. I remember mixing that and thinking, “This is really great. She’s really killed it,” yeah.
The record has so many jumps in mood and emotion, but there’s this consistent feeling of love and euphoria that’s a solid throughline throughout. It’s almost healing. Was recording and writing it similar? A labour of love?
Yeah it was definitely healing, and we were just… I think we just felt very free after making two very sample heavy records that were very hard and long to make. We felt very free, and it was just a really joyous process. It was more like when you say cathartic, I mean, we’d had our dark periods in our lives and our journey earlier, but we were already out the other side of it, and able to reflect back on it and write a record about it, but while not being actually in it. That’s maybe how that feeling comes across, yeah.
The title of the album is ‘We Will Always Love you’. I’m guessing it’s directed at your fans?
That’s one of the meanings, for sure. Definitely. I love that about it. Like, we love music, we love each other and we love the healing power of music, and I love that it can be taken in that way as well.
Are there any other meanings you can share with us?
I mean, it just ties in… For me, it ties in when I found the story of the Voyager Golden Record and the sound of Ann Druyan’s heart and brainwaves being on that album, and she recorded it the day after Carl Sagan proposed to her. So, that theme of like everlasting love, floating out there in the universe forever is like, the title means that to me as well.
Now concerning live shows, your live sets are literally the stuff of legends. Any time I or a mate of mine has seen you at a festival, it’s always followed by this feeling of wonderment like we can’t believe what we just saw. You repeatedly deliver those experiences. How do you do it?
Oh, my goodness. I don’t know. That’s so nice to hear. We were like crazy kids when we first started playing live, so we’ve been doing it for a long time. But more and more now, I think we almost just try to step back a bit and enjoy. Because every time we play live, we say to each other, “This could be the last time we ever do it, so let’s enjoy it.” And then we just enjoy that cycle of music. Because we might be DJing, even if it’s one of our songs, or sometimes the vocal sample is from the 1960s or something. In some ways it’s not even us, our music. We’re just part of it, the crowd’s part of it all, we’re part of it all. Everybody makes the show great, you know?
I have a feeling that when you hit the stage again with this new album, your previous live shows are gonna pale in comparison to this. How are you feeling about playing these songs live? What do you think the atmosphere is gonna be like?
Oh, my goodness. I’m just so excited. My suitcase is packed by the door, I’m so ready. For us, that’s why we do this, to connect with people. We just can’t wait.
You guys have been around for so long and have seen the Australian music industry go through so many different stages and transformations. Watching everything unfold in 2020, being that you’re veterans in the industry, how do you sort of view/ approach it all?
It’s just been so uncertain. It’s so tough for artists to make a living, you know? It’s not an easy business at all and I have so much respect for everybody in this business. With streaming platforms, like they pay artists fuck all. It’s really difficult. I think what we’ve done is just never chased anything or followed. We always just try to look into ourselves and chase the feeling when we’re making the music. I never try to write hits or anything like that. It’s just keep making music from the heart and remembering why we’re doing it. That’s all we know how to do, and we just keep it simple like that.
Being that you’ve been around for so long, you’ve built up such a dedicated fan base that extends beyond age or category. How does it feel to have transcended those sorts of barriers?
I think we’re really lucky like that. Because there were 16 years between our first album and our second, and I remember our second record had just come out and we were just doing some shows in America, and we were like, “Who’s going to come? Is it just going to be like all people in their 40s who remember the first record? What’s it going to be like?” And then we were really nervous, and we walked out on stage and it was just kids everywhere. Everybody from like 18 upwards. I don’t know why that happens, but we feel very lucky that the new generation keeps discovering our music.
I’m honestly struggling to end this in a satisfying way. There are a million more things I wanna ask you. I just wanna know, listening back to this album, how does it make you feel, and what do you hope your fans feel when listening?
It makes me feel very proud that we did it under such difficult circumstances. It makes me just, because it’s coming out like 20 years almost after our first record, it makes me very grateful actually to still be making music after all this time. And it makes me reflect on all the friendships I’ve made over this journey and how important they are to me, and how lucky I am. That’s what I feel.
As we cap off this year, are there any silver linings you’ve taken away from it all? Anything you’re gonna take into 2021?
Yeah. I mean, there’s so many silver linings. Especially the way that I think we’ve all realised how much we need each other. I’m in Melbourne and our lockdown was… it’s been full on. So sad in a lot of ways. Like, for a long time we were only allowed out for an hour a day and all the streets were closed, businesses were shut down, people looked really heartbroken. Streets are empty. It’s just that’s what I take out of this year, that so many people, now that restrictions are lifting a bit, have realized how much we really need each other, that human connection and friendships are the most important thing we have. I think that’s what the silver lining is, people have just realized it’s the simple things and how important they really are. We can lose our way in technology and the hustle and bustle of modern life. We can get lost, but it’s great to be reminded of what’s really important.
The Avalanches’ new album We Will Always Love You is out now. You can buy/ stream it here.
