We’ve been waiting for it longer than Tool’s new album. It’s gained a mythical status that’s outstripped Chinese Democracy. But according to one half of The Avalanches, their second album will be finished in less than a month.
In fact, the long overdue follow-up to Since I Left You will “be done in three weeks.”
As with most information regarding the status of The Avalanches’ first new record in 14 years (and counting), the latest tidbit comes via a rather obscure source: the mouth of US singer Jennifer Herrema – one half of rock band Royal Trux and frontwoman for Black Bananas – in a recent interview with The Quietus (via MusicFeeds).
While discussing a track she wrote in collaboration with the Aussie group, called ‘Stepkids’, Herrema says that The Avalanches’ Robbie Chater is ready to return the favour with a Black Bananas remix… after finishing off album #2.
“[Chater] wrote me last week and they’re gonna do a remix for this album and he updated me,” says Herrema. “He said that their album was gonna be done in three weeks and then he was gonna work on the Black Bananas remix.”
Chater originally commissioned Herrema to write and sing lyrics for ‘Stepkids’ back in 2011. “[Robbie] wanted a song about a lost kid, like a street kid, just something melancholy or whatever and thought that I’d be good at doing that and it turned out to be really easy,” she explains.
So has she actually heard the fabled Avalanches release? Long story short, no. But Herrema has been told her contribution has now “gotten some strings in there and [Chater] said it sounded awesome.”
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As far as updates go, Herrema’s suggestion that the new album will be finished in a matter of weeks is characteristically on-point with any activity to do with The Avalanches in recent years. That is to say, optimistic but sketchy.
Last month, the band’s label – Modular – confirmed that The Avalanches had lost one of its members, Darren Seltmann, along the way and had officially shrunk down to a duo, of Robbie Chater and Tony Di Blasi.
“Album sounds awesome, but there’s no dates or anything planned,” said Modular in March, “The official line is ‘stay tuned’,” which has been the party line since as far back as 2006.
So, assuming The Avalanches’ new record ever does see the light of the day, the bigger question after 14 years of delays, hype, and almost annual broken promises is not whether a new Avalanches LP will be any good, but whether there’ll still be an audience there to care about it.
