The Avalanches On Why They've Dwindled Away To A Duo

After countless false proclamations, not even diehard fans imagined that The Avalanches would ever follow 2000's cult album Since I Left You. But, in July, Melbourne's now duo of Tony Di Blasi and Robbie Chater unveiled the wistfully beguiling Wildflower. It could be the 'event' album of 2016.

The hyper-scrutiny hasn't stopped, however. The Avalanches' live comeback at Splendour In The Grass, trailing European DJ dates, was dissected minutely. The eccentric party faves will be better prepared for this summer's Falls Festival appearances and hot-ticket headlining shows.

Di Blasi makes it hard to ask the tough questions by being so endearing. He laughs merrily, cracking self-effacing jokes about the ridiculously epic wait for Wildflower. Still, he's surprisingly candid.

Since Splendour, The Avalanches have been developing their tour act - which, in its current incarnation, features Baltimore rapper Spank Rock, divette Eliza Wolfgramm and drummer Paris Jeffree. They're also lining up "special guests", with Mercury Rev's Jonathan Donahue, who sings Wildflower's woozy Colours, confirmed. The Avalanches will retain their hybrid format - with Di Blasi behind the decks and the peroxide blond Chater on guitar. "Because there's so many samples in all the music that we do, it's really, really hard to play traditionally live," Di Blasi explains. "I guess it's kinda the only way we know." Punters will hear more Wildflower songs.

"He went one way and we were still living 'the broke musician life' that perhaps doesn't work with a family, I presume."

The Avalanches enterprise was conceived by Di Blasi and Chater, school pals from regional Victoria, with Darren Seltmann in the late '90s. They'd eventually expand into a six-man collective. Signed to Steve Pavlovic's Modular Recordings, The Avalanches presented Since I Left You, a plunderphonics - or mash-up - classic with reputedly 3,500 samples (Madonna's Holiday!). The Avalanches scooped ARIAs. More significant was their international success. The Avalanches preempted Australia's dance and hip-hop boom, post-pub-rock. They enraptured a cynical UK media.

Nonetheless, Since... was followed by years of pedantic ambition, complicated sample clearances, and stress. Chater privately battled debilitating autoimmune disorders. And, then, Modular imploded. The Avalanches summarised it as "seven shades of shit". But the outfit, and Modular, periodically hyped up a second album, which, in turn, became an 'in' joke. In 2013 The Avalanches intriguingly remixed Hunters & Collectors' Talking To A Stranger (their version cleverly titled Stalking To A Stranger) for the Crucible tribute project.

Over time, too, The Avalanches disintegrated - today Di Blasi quips that they're "dwindling away" - leaving him and Chater as the principal DJ/producer/musos. The Avalanches' champion turntablist Dexter Fabay quit early, launching Grrilla Step. The most momentous desertion was that of Seltmann - belatedly revealed by his singer/songwriter wife Sally in 2014. It didn't radically alter the dynamic, Di Blasi maintains. "I think it was just like a slow kind of departure. I don't think his head was in the game anymore. It took a few years for that to work out. It was slowly more about Robbie and I doing stuff together. Then we just woke up one day and went, 'Where's Darren?' So we had a big talk and, in the end, he just didn't really feel like doing it anymore. We were cool, like, 'Yeah, no worries - you could have told us,'" he laughs. Seltmann's new domesticity was a factor. "He went one way and we were still living 'the broke musician life' that perhaps doesn't work with a family, I presume." Alas, that distance has widened. "I don't have much contact with him - and, by 'much', I mean 'any' contact," Di Blasi laughs.

"I haven't really paid a lot of attention to social media or anything like that. Robbie does it a bit more than I, but I just feel like it gets a bit weird when you start reading all this stuff."

Another member, James Dela Cruz, briefly returned. Although the DJ wasn't involved in creating Wildflower, he began hanging out with The Avalanches. They invited him to rejoin the live ensemble. Dela Cruz posed with them for the Wildflower promo shots. Says Di Blasi, "We were like, 'Oh, cool - it feels like more of a band than just a duo.'" Unfortunately, they hadn't yet discussed monies. "When it came to working out the finances of the situation, we were taken aback by what he wanted," Di Blasi laughs. "We weren't able to afford to have him in the band, for what he wanted."

The genius of Wildflower lies in its meta-nostalgia; The Avalanches mythologising themselves as much as any epoch. The album navigates a sonic (road)trip through '60s psychedelia and '90s breakbeat, disco-house and Balearic. Thematically, it manifests an impossible dream of carefree countercultural romance.

For the first time, The Avalanches collaborated with other 'stars'. The ubiquitous lead single Frankie Sinatra epitomises The Avalanches' novel charm with its calypso swing, and The Sound Of Music flip, but adds cameos by mavericks Danny Brown and MF DOOM. The Noisy Eater is a big-beat cartoon with MC Biz Markie and a snatch of The Beatles' Come Together - as sung by high school kids (and "personally approved by Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono"). Crucially, Wildflower is idiosyncratic. Di Blasi is at a loss as to how to position it in contemporary pop.

Indeed, in 2016 The Avalanches constitute their own micro scene - existing outside of time and space. "I feel like Since... was more of its time than Wildflower is of now."

With impossibly high expectations, Wildflower received wildly divergent reviews - from OTT to underwhelmed. Di Blasi is happy with the response overall - as far as he can ascertain. "I think it's been quite positive, to be honest. I haven't really paid a lot of attention to social media or anything like that. Robbie does it a bit more than I, but I just feel like it gets a bit weird when you start reading all this stuff. But every now and then I have a look." In Australia, Wildflower debuted at #1. Shockingly, The Avalanches were overlooked at this year's ARIAs in favour of Flume.

The music industry has changed dramatically since 2000. Prior to Wildflower's issue, The Avalanches arranged an exclusive week-long stream via Apple Music (excluding Europe) and were granted a TV ad campaign in Oz using Subways. But, Di Blasi says, that might have adversely impacted the UK roll-out. "There was some little argy-bargy over there about that." Mind, Wildflower reached the UK Top 10.

Mid-year, The Avalanches were compelled to cancel European bookings because Di Blasi had "a medical condition requiring treatment". He's adamant that neither this "temporary thing" nor Chater's health concerns will affect 2017's global tour plans. "I think it was just burn-out," Di Blasi admits. "We kind of thought we'd finish the record and you could put your feet up and sit back and relax - I don't know why we thought that. Probably 'cause we hadn't had a release for 16 years! We didn't realise how hectic that was gonna be." They simply "needed a break".

The Avalanches have described the completion of Wildflower as a "quasi-magical quest". Yet recently the pair have suggested that a third album may surface as soon as 2018. "My friends say that we live on Avalanche time, which is, 'I'll send it Tuesday', and it ends up being Sunday," a blithe Di Blasi teases. "So 2018 might end up being a little bit later. But, in all honesty, I'd love to do something really, really quick... So I think, yeah, 2018, '19 - hopefully."