The Avalanches famously took 16 years to develop their second album, Wildflower, after the release of their immaculate debut, Since I Left You, in 2000. Hopefully, we’re not going to have to wait that long for the next record, though. 

In 2018, a tweet from the duo suggested their third album was already “taking shape”, and now new music – the first since Wildflower – might serve as evidence of that.

Even better news: the new music in question is a track featuring Dev Hynes (aka Blood Orange), titled “We Will Always Love You”. The song debuted February 20 along with visuals from Jonathan Zawada.

“Sometimes we receive a message,” reads an accompanying statement from The Avalanches. “Telling us our music has been there; through dark times, loneliness, loss.”

“There are no words to express how moving or profound this connection with you is. Because the music was born out of such moments itself, and so it is felt, by those with open hearts, on the same wavelength it was first created.”

“Our new record is about such journeys, from darkness to light. About life after (all kinds of) death. About the transcendent nature of music itself.”

“Every voice ever played on the radio over the last 100 years now exists in the stars; the transmissions of these singers are forever floating around out there, lost in the cosmos, endlessly travelling. Tonight Smokey Robinson duets with Dev Hynes and The Roches. Those spirits are out there.”

The title of the track was also teased in advance the day before its release, in the form of morse code projected from the top of LA’s Capitol Tower.

Listen to “We Will Always Love You” and read the statement in full below.