The Avalanches have shared the joyously nostalgic single ‘Together’, featuring Nikki Nair, Jessy Lanza and Prentiss – listen below.
- READ MORE: The Avalanches: “Now we’re just a regular band instead of the band who made an amazing debut”
The Melbourne electronic ‘plunderphonics’ group have not released any new music since their third album ‘We Will Always Love You’ in 2020, itself the follow-up to 2016’s ‘Wildflower’, their return after 16 years away.
Now, they are back with a new single, which is thought to be the first taste of a fourth album from the band. The infectiously energetic track explores the aching warmth of the nature of memory, with Jessy Lanza singing: “You only know the picture me, the one that smiles with hope / You could never picture me at home, crying over my telephone / I’ll never be the picture me, the me I love the most / Staring at a picture on my phone, staring at a memory that’s gone”.
It comes along with a simple video showing a floppy disk and an iPod galloping forward in front of a sun that rises and sets with alarming regularity. Watch here:
NME spoke to The Avalanches in 2020 about the legacy of their landmark 2000 debut album ‘Since I Left You’.
“‘Since I Left You’s shadow got bigger and bigger every year,” Tony Di Blasi said.
“I still remember four years [after it was released] my girlfriend at the time said, ‘You know people say it’s a really classic record?’” Robbie Chater added. “I’d never heard anybody say that. I just heard all the shit I should’ve done better.”
“Now it’s 20, the little kid’s all grown up!” Di Blasi exclaimed.
“I have a great relationship with the album now,” Chater continued. “It sounds like a very young me made it. It’s naïve, heart-on-sleeve, it was never cool or ironic. It was passionate, of the moment, full of joy.”
Last year, The Avalanches contributed tracks to Massive Attack’s ‘Piccadilly Un:Plugged’ installation in London, and in 2024, they collaborated with Jamie xx for his single ‘All You Children’, a follow-on from their previous work together on ‘Wherever You Go’ from ‘We Will Always Love You’.