The Avalanches

Corner.

First of all, I don't know who's aware of the Avalanches.

You know the Avalanches U2, Australian electronica?

Yeah, yeah, that one song with that one riff.

The boy needs therapy.

Is the Avalanches by U2?

You're thinking about Frontier Psychologist? Psychiatrist, sorry, Andrew.

Is that them? That boy needs therapy.

So they're co-written.

And then Green, I asked to kind of join in with one of those tracks and then he added, quite a lot to it in a really brilliant way so it became more collaborative the more he was involved um and that's just something i really enjoy doing and it's obviously an honor for me to have some of these people as part of my record the avalanches or green or any of the people that that are on it um so it's a way of telling people about what i love in other people's music but also just for the creative enjoyment of writing with other people and seeing if that can push you

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Well, mine is music.

It is the new album by the Australian band The Avalanches, which is called No Bad Memories.

And if you know The Avalanches, they build their stuff from samples and odds and sods.

And as they've got more and more famous, they've been able to get actual famous musicians in to pretend to be samples.

And this album, No Bad Memories...

And it's like nostalgic for the early days of digital media, which I find very entertaining because to me that feels like now, but I guess it's the past now.

iPods are the past.

And the great thing that the Avalanches have is in between all the bangers and the big kind of strange electronic noises and the treating of sound as plastic and elastic, their melodic instinct is quite poignant.

All right, some background.

The Avalanches are an Australian electronic group currently composed of members Robbie Chatter and Tony DeBlasi, plus longtime collaborator and now official member.

Congrats to Andy Sekeresh.

Sekeresh, I think is how you say that.

and everything in between.

However, No Bad Memories is unique for focusing especially on sounds and guests associated with the world of commercial advertising, such as Susan Chiani, Hiromi Hosono, and glitch artist Ryoji Aikida, who provides a lot of the early 2000s advertising sound effects.

Indeed, in a press release, the Avalanches explained that the album is, quote, "...inspired by the simultaneously magical and insidious ways that advertising and name-brand technology wraps itself around our memories, calling it an ambivalent ode to the nostalgic pull of commercial jingles, proprietary startup sounds, and long-forgotten audio logos." They added, it's been interesting as adults to reflect on this often stunning period of marketing, the creativity, filmmaking, photography, and music, but which was also selling a completely unobtainable dream.

The way we value devices and products, the way we reflect and represent a life lived, the wonder of memory and deep power of nostalgia, especially in sound.

Dave here.

The review of the Avalanches' fourth album, No Bad Memories.

Once again, the Australian EDM group has given us a long wait between albums.

Their previous record, We Will Always Love You, came out back in 2020. but of course this is nothing new for the group because of course their debut album released in 2000 and that second album did not come out until 2016 so hiatuses and long breaks is par for the course with the avalanche and i was really looking forward to this new avalanches album just because i really like their song music makes me high off the last album that song has been in the most consistent rotation for me among edm songs this decade like it's just a song that's on every like party playlist for me amazing banger of course i was really curious about what this album would sound like and i have to say the avalanche's fourth album no bad memories definitely harkens back to their first album from 2000 way more than i would have expected This is a long record, 31 songs, 52 minutes.

But there's only a handful of songs that I probably would pull out and throw out.

And frankly, do any of these songs really move me the way Music Makes Me High continues to do from the last album? No, not really.

But the Avalanches, I still have a lot of respect for them because they're one of the few EDM acts that really acts as an album artist and aren't just going to play clubs and put out singles once in a while like the standard DJs do today.

So I respect them and I look forward to their releases and hopefully it's not another six years, six plus years before the next one.

Into this in a big way.

This is The Avalanches featuring Loaded Honey.

That song's called I Give Everything I Have to You.

Chris Schultz, our music reviewer, is in.

And that's a great sound, but it's not easy to make.

It's really hard to make.

Yeah, this is the avalanches we're talking about.

I needed this kind of music this week.