{"id":76781,"date":"2020-12-28T11:35:16","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T17:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/?p=76781"},"modified":"2020-12-28T11:37:24","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T17:37:24","slug":"the-avalanches-we-will-always-love-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/2020\/12\/28\/the-avalanches-we-will-always-love-you\/","title":{"rendered":"The Avalanches: We Will Always Love You"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\u201cWhere do I fit into this whole flow of energy?\u201d asked Robbie Chater, one half of acclaimed electronic duo The Avalanches, in an interview with The New York Times. While Chater may have posed this question in the context of sampling old records, it is a question that the duo\u2019s newest album, We Will Always Love You<\/em>, seems to ask as a whole. Chater and his musical partner Tony Di Blasi reported being inspired by the Golden Records–two 12-inch records aboard the Voyager, drifting in space, containing various sounds from earth, waiting to be heard by extraterrestrial ears. It comes as no surprise that WWALY<\/em> is cosmos-themed, dealing with grand concepts such as light, energy, loss, and the afterlife. These concepts play out in many of the voice concepts and lyrical passages throughout the album, but it\u2019s the celestial sonic landscapes that seal the deal. While their previous two albums certainly transport listeners into new worlds with tapestries of samples, We Will Always Love You<\/em> feels different. It is still primarily created from hundreds of samples, but it also sees The Avalanches adding live instrumentation and an abundance of features and collaborators in order to create the dreamy universe they set out to explore.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time The Avalanches have experimented with adding guest vocalists and musicians to their music. 2016\u2019s Wildflower<\/em> featured contributions from high profile artists such as Danny Brown, MF Doom, and Toro y Moi. We Will Always Love You<\/em>\u2019s feature list is much more extensive, featuring MGMT, Leon Bridges, Blood Orange, Kurt Vile, Rivers Cuomo, Sampa the Great, Denzel Curry, Pink Siifu, Jamie xx, and several others. Chater described finding the right vocalist for a track as \u201calmost like sampling.\u201d This album is certainly a new sound for the group, though, in a way, it is also a synthesis of the sounds of both Wildflower<\/em> and their debut cult-darling Since I Left You<\/em> (2000). While Wildflower<\/em> and it\u2019s few features gave us some of the best Avalanches tracks in existence, such as \u201cBecause I\u2019m Me\u201d and \u201cFrankie Sinatra,\u201d the album is tied together with strange voice samples and field sounds, and feels like a less cohesive journey than their breezy debut. We Will Always Love You<\/em> is the best of both worlds. It features great, stand-alone collaborative tracks like \u201cTake Care in Your Dreaming\u201d– which contains great verses from rappers Denzel Curry and Sampa the Great–and \u201cRunning Red Lights\u201d–an sunshiney electro-pop tune featuring Rivers Cuomo of Weezer. Yet the album flows smoothly, with interconnected themes and great transitions. In addition, tracks like \u201cMusic Makes Me High\u201d and \u201cBorn To Lose\u201d sound like classic Avalanches songs, ones that could easily fit on Since I Left You<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We Will Always Love You<\/em> deals heavily with loss. \u201cGhost Story\u201d opens the album with a spoken passage by Superorganism\u2019s Orono Noguchi that sounds like a voicemail by someone who has left suddenly. The passage ends with the speaker saying they \u201cwill always love you.\u201d While it is unclear whether this implies the end of a relationship or the death of a loved one, the idea of death and the afterlife pervades the album. In the world of We Will Always Love You<\/em>, those lost are never really gone, and a cosmic energy connects souls for eternity. Tracks like the danceable \u201cWe Go On,\u201d the Jamie xx-tinged \u201cWherever You Go,\u201d and the transitory track \u201cSolitary Ceremonies\u201d loosely examine this concept. The album invites interpretation and connection on a personal level, though it is clear that music is to be celebrated and is a way to connect with those gone. One song even contains lyrics taken from a song by the late David Berman; a tribute to the beloved indie singer who passed away in 2019.<\/p>\n

The Avalanches crafted WWALY<\/em> as a testament to the powerful force of music. This is explored in songs like the disco-esque \u201cMusic Makes Me High\u201d and it\u2019s sister track \u201cMusic is the Light,\u201d but is embodied by the album itself. Despite the somber, at times introspective subject matter(s), We Will Always Love You<\/em> is at its core music that demands dancing. There is no shortage of upbeat, celebratory tracks that cannot help but at least conjure foot tapping. Dark lyrics or vocal passages are often juxtaposed with spirited, airy instrumentals, such as on \u201cRunning Red Lights\u201d and \u201cGold Sky.\u201d Through this The Avalanches show music as a way to deal with hardship and loss, things that everyone has felt in 2020. The Avalanches\u2019 projects have always celebrated music; it\u2019s in the nature of their craft–taking bits of existing music to make something new. But We Will Always Love You<\/em> addresses this idea directly, and presents music as an energy force that seems to connect all things–living, dead, or somewhere in between.<\/p>\n

The album’s only shortcoming is perhaps it\u2019s length. Clocking in at an hour and eleven minutes, it is slightly longer than The Avalanches\u2019 previous two records. It is not a deal-breaker, though it is hard not to think that later, weaker tracks like \u201cBorn to Lose\u201d and \u201cMusic is the Light,\u201d could have been cut to make for a tighter listen. Still, We Will Always Love You<\/em> is a journey worth taking, one that feels like a relevant ending to a difficult year, and one that illustrates the healing power of music.
\n
\nRecommended If You Like: Oneohtrix Point Never, DJ Shadow, Madlib
\nRecommended Tracks: We Will Always Love You, The Divine Chord, We Go On, Take Care in Your Dreaming, Running Red Lights
\nDo Not Play: Reflecting Light, Take Care in Your Dreaming, Always Black, Born To Loose
\nWritten by Josh Rubino on 12\/22\/2020 <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Australian crate-diggers deliver a beautiful, feature-rich meditation on loss, light, cosmic energy, and the power of music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21332,"featured_media":76782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182,4,3230],"tags":[8613,6542,8612],"class_list":["post-76781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hip-hopelectronic-rotation","category-music","category-new-music-rotation","tag-plunderphonics","tag-the-avalanches","tag-we-will-always-love-you"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/We-Will-Always-Love-You_The-Avalanches_opt.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21332"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76781"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76790,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76781\/revisions\/76790"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}