Days after their social media went blank, The Avalanches have shared some new artwork, leading to more speculation about a forthcoming record.
Over the weekend, The Avalanches apparently followed in the footsteps of the mighty Radiohead, purging their Instagram account and causing fans to shout the question – as their song “Frontier Psychiatrist” famously spouted – “what does that mean?”
Thankfully, the duo didn’t leave us in the dark too long, with Monday bringing with it the arrival of new artwork on their social media accounts. A spacey, intergalactic affair, the artwork quickly drew comparisons to a number of Spotify mixes previously shared by the group which featured similar work.
On Tuesday though, the excitement was ramped up once again with the arrival of a new billboard in Melbourne. Bearing the same artwork as their social accounts, the graphic features the phrases “After We Die, What Then?” and “We Will Always Love You”, morse code which translates to the latter phrase, and the web URL, “wwaly.earth“.
The site in question appears to provide more questions than answers, featuring a video file that offers up morse code that spells out “The Avalanches”, and an occasional whispered phrase of “we can hear you.”
Though further details are currently unclear, it certainly looks as though The Avalanches are up to something, though it can’t be conclusively determined just what that is. Given the rapid speed at which things have been happening, it’s logical to assume that further details (or clues, at the very least) will emerge within the coming days, and that if new music is indeed on its way, it will likely be again premiered via triple j in the near future as well.
As it stands, it’s currently been three-and-a-half years since the release of Wildflower, the band’s first album in 16 years. Though fans were cautious to expect a follow-up so soon, the group revealed in 2017 they were already hunting for samples for their new record, before stating in 2018 their “third album is taking shape and we can’t wait to share it with you all. It’s already something very special.”
The biggest update came in November of last year though, when the group noted they had just undertaken their “final session of album 3 with the Australian Boys Choir.” Unfortunately, no updates followed from the outfit as to what was coming next, though their remix of The Chemical Brothers’ ‘Out of Control’ did appear only days later.
