We Will Always Love You

by The Avalanches

Overview

After inducing the overstimulated feeling of rebounding in a carnival from heartbreak (Since I Left You) and soundtracking a summertime caravan across their native Australia (Wildflower), the Avalanches looked to space for their third album. More specifically, Robbie Chater and Toni Di Blasi became fascinated with the Golden Record, a kind of time capsule aboard NASA's Voyager spacecraft. Plans for a spoken contribution from the creative director of the Voyager Interstellar Message Project, Ann Druyan, fell through, but that's her on the album cover, her image from a television screen snapped by a camera and processed through a spectrograph. Druyan's brain waves, recorded as she thought about Carl Sagan -- with whom she worked and fell in love during the project -- are on the Golden Record. It's that "cosmic love story," as Chater put it, that guided the making of We Will Always Love You. Yet another emotional roller coaster, this is the Avalanches' longest one yet, accommodating around 20 riders -- a number of featured artists that exceeds that of Wildflower -- and samples numbering in the hundreds. There is a strong connection to the previous trip with the Rivers Cuomo-fronted kaleidoscopic pop nugget "Running Red Lights," a desperate romantic chase scene in which Pink Siifu also recites slightly remixed lyrics written by late Wildflower contributor David Berman: "I sleep three feet above the street/In a pink champagne Corvette/Fly out into space/Listen to the music the stars are making/Without a flicker of regret." Those lines are representative of an album where so much happens -- in painstakingly connected and sometimes overlapping fashion -- that dozens of listens are required to process all the information. Cola Boyy and Mick Jones transmit from the indie disco of an interplanetary craft to pay tribute to Karen Carpenter on "We Go On." Perry Farrell, backed by a spectral choir, does his musical healer thing, singing about love and light on another loping dancefloor groove. The biggest triumph is probably the graceful fusion of a looped line from the Alan Parsons Project's anti-surveillance soft-rock classic "Eye in the Sky" with a genuinely consoling original vocal from Leon Bridges, heard in the chugging "Interstellar Love." The album's stronger dancefloor emphasis in relation to Wildflower is also felt throughout "The Divine Chord," a collaboration with MGMT and Johnny Marr that evokes the same twirling, heart-aflutter daze as "Since I Left You." Another clever aspect of the album is that the Avalanches make room for artists whose solo debuts made splashes big enough to be measured against all subsequent output. In addition to Sananda Maitreya (formerly known as Terence Trent D'Arby) and Tricky, there's Neneh Cherry, provider of the most urgent vocal through "Wherever You Go," a call for togetherness with roots in early Chicago house. Overall, the guest artists are more attuned here with Chater and Di Blasi, who were seemingly burdened much more by sample licensing than by commercial expectations. Pocket some tissue and hold tight. ~ Andy Kellman

Product Details

Release Date:	12/11/2020
Label:	Astralwerks
UPC:	0602508499623

Tracks

1. Ghost Story
2. Song for Barbara Payton
3. We Will Always Love You
4. The Divine Chord
5. Solitary Ceremonies
6. Interstellar Love
7. Ghost Story, Pt. 2
8. Reflecting Light
9. Carrier Waves
10. Oh the Sunn!
11. We Go On
12. Star Story.IMG
13. Until Daylight Comes
14. Wherever You Go
15. Music Makes Me High
16. Pink Champagne
17. Take Care in Your Dreaming
18. Overcome
19. Gold Sky
20. Always Black
21. Dial D for Devotion
22. Running Red Lights
23. Born to Lose
24. Music Is the Light
25. Weightless

Album Credits

Performance Credits

The Avalanches   Primary Artist
Orono   Primary Artist,Vocals,Featured Artist
Terence Trent D'Arby   Primary Artist,Vocals
Tricky   Primary Artist,Vocals,Featured Artist
Blood Orange   Primary Artist,Featured Artist
Denzel Curry   Primary Artist,Vocals,Featured Artist
Leon Bridges   Primary Artist,Vocals,Featured Artist
Sampa the Great   Primary Artist,Vocals,Featured Artist
Vashti Bunyan   Primary Artist,Featured Artist
Cornelius   Primary Artist,Vocals,Featured Artist
Karen O   Primary Artist,Vocals,Featured Artist
Johnny Marr   Primary Artist,Guitar,Featured Artist
Perry Farrell   Primary Artist,Vocals,Featured Artist
Neneh Cherry   Primary Artist,Vocals,Featured Artist
Mick Jones   Primary Artist,Piano,Featured Artist,Piano,Vocals
Kurt Vile   Primary Artist,Guitar,Vocals,Featured Artist
Jamie xx   Primary Artist,Featured Artist
Pink Siifu   Primary Artist,Vocals,Featured Artist
Kelly Moran   Primary Artist,Piano,Prepared Piano,Featured Artist
Cola Boyy   Primary Artist,Vocals,Featured Artist
Clypso   Primary Artist,Vocals,Featured Artist
MGMT   Primary Artist,Vocals,Featured Artist
Rivers Cuomo   Primary Artist,Vocals,Featured Artist
Tom Rowlands   VCS 3 Synthesizer
Mike Callander   Noise
Etty Farrell   Vocals
Carpenters   Vocals
Australian Boys Choir   Vocals
Wayne Coyne   Vocals
Sananda Maitreya   Featured Artist
Cameron McVey   Vocals
Devonte Hynes   Vocals
Farmer Dave Scher   Melodica,Keyboards,Lap Steel Guitar
John Carroll Kirby   DX-7,Piano,Treated Piano,Moog Synthesizer
East Coast Inspirational Singers   Vocals
Marta Zlakowska   Vocals
The Yarra Voices Choir   Vocals

Technical Credits

Robert Rucker   Composer
David Berman   Composer
Hal Davis   Composer
Stu Gardner   Composer
Burt Bacharach   Composer
William Robinson   Composer
Jeremy Earl   Composer
Gary Geld   Composer
Hal David   Composer
Smokey Robinson   Composer
Rivers Cuomo   Composer
Nelson Miller   Composer
Clint Welander   Mixing Engineer
Delroy Murray   Composer
Christian Scallan   Engineer
Ben Goldwasser   Composer
Matthew Urango   Composer
Barbara Payton   Composer
Terence Trent D'Arby   Composer
Alan Parsons   Composer
Steve Reich   Composer
Mike Callander   Tape Delays
Frank Drake   Composer
Denzel Curry   Composer
Leon Bridges   Composer
Chris Vivion   Composer
George Janho   Assistant Engineer
Zachary Zajdel   Assistant Engineer
Andrew Szekeres   Composer,Producer
Sampa Tembo   Composer
Robert Chater   Mixing,Composer,Producer
Andy Szekeres   Composer,Instrumentation,Additional Production
The Avalanches   Programming,Instrumentation
Vashti Bunyan   Composer
Eric Woolfson   Composer
James Smith   Composer
Pat Metheny   Composer
Wayne Coyne   Composer
Wayne Hector   Composer
Peter Udell   Composer
Perry Farrell   Composer
Neneh Cherry   Composer
Jarvis Taveniere   Engineer
Keigo Oyamada   Composer
Sharon Lewis   Composer
Steven F. Taveniere   Composer
Robin Achampong   Composer
Tony Espie   Mixing,Mixing Supervision
Cameron McVey   Composer
Robbie Chater   Mixing,Composer,Producer
Tony Di Blasi   Mixing,Composer,Producer,Mixing Supervision,Additional Production
Devonte Hynes   Composer
Kurt Vile   Composer
Joe LaPorta   Mastering,Mastering Engineer
Eric Frederic   Composer
Andrew VanWyngarden   Composer
Chris Gilroy   Recording
Adrian Thaws   Composer
Nate Haessly   Assistant Engineer
Nate Mercereau   Composer
Austin Jenkins   Composer
Kelly Moran   Composer
Orono Noguchi   Composer
Clypso   Composer
Joshua Block   Composer
Livingston Matthews   Composer
iZNiiK   Producer,Additional Production
Billi Rucker   Composer
Livingstone Matthews   Composer