For a band that put so much focus into making their albums flow seamlessly, there are three distinct eras to note in The Avalanches' history. Much has been made of their first era, which starts from the band's formation as Alarm 115 in 1994, to the release of their seminal debut album, Since I Left You, in 2000. In that period the band would play their first four gigs under different names, before settling on their now-iconic monker, The Avalanches. They named themselves after an American surf rock band that only recorded one album. For a decade-plus, that looked like the same fate The Avalanches were heading towards. 

The band's seven-track EP released in 1997, El Producto, foreshadowed what was yet to come from the band. While The Avalanches have had many forms and many members that have since come and gone, the ethos has always stayed the same - letting their instincts guide the music. El Producto is a manifestation of the band's live energy, and at the time they were considered to be one of the best live bands on the planet. While they've matured now beyond those punk-loving teenagers emulating the likes of the Beastie Boys (who they supported during those early days), that energy is still there in their live shows. Of course, they've adopted a few honourary Avalanches when they play live. 

The next era is the band's longest - the years that came after releasing Since I Left You, and the pressures that came with releasing a genre-defining masterpiece. Wildflower is the album that almost never was - which the band acknowledges. It's an album that represents the self-doubt that the band experienced post-SILY. There were a few things left unsaid that the band wanted to get on the record this time around. While The Avalanches have often been shrouded in an air of mystery, they're stepping forward into the limelight. No more hiding behind the music - they wanted to put it all on the table.

This all brings us to their current era. When we speak to Robbie Chater, half of The Avalanches, it's during a period that sees things in a state of normality for the band, despite the craziness of the year. Why does all this history matter? It's important to understand why Robbie and his other half, Tony De Blasi, are so calm about releasing music in 2020, a year that's seen the music industry flipped on its head. For the pair, this year might have been calmer than many in their past - after all, they're a band that thrives on chaos.

It's this chaotic energy that is present throughout all three of their albums - Since I Left You is a raucous party that goes all night, Wildflower is a psychedelic haze, and 2020's We Will Always Love You is a trip through the cosmos. WWALY is the band's most 'structured' release - and yet, it sounds like their most experimental. Countless names from all genres such as Weezer, MGMT, Johnny Marr, Neneh Cherry and more feature on the album,  and it's a result of shaking the second album blues. Robbie is buzzing when he talks about the weight being lifted off the band's shoulders following Wildflower, saying, "We felt very free after finishing the second record to just go wherever wanted. There were no rules." The band has never had a "long-term plan", but hey - it doesn't seem like they need one.

The band's learnt a lot from their first two albums, and that can be seen in the narrative around WWALY. While SILY was an "energetic expression of joy, and the joy of being alive, as well as pure creativity", this album saw the band commit to "being brave and talking about what [they] were thinking". This can be seen in everything from the narrative around the album, to the way Robbie communicated with collaborators, which he says is "the most beautiful part of this record". The Avalanches have always collaborated with other musicians - from sampling records of the past, to a hybrid of samples/new voices on Wildflower - and WWALY sees them reaching out to all corners of the globe to bring in voices to create a kaleidoscope of sounds.

"We didn't want the collaborations to feel dialed in. If you're going to do it authentically, it involves a very honest conversation. That leap of faith... Sometimes we knew people beforehand, sometimes we didn't. Anyone who ended up on the record were the instances where someone went 'I know what you're talking about'. We didn't want them to write about our story, but it was more of a chat to understand [where] we were coming from."

Given the range of collaborators on the record, it's no surprise that everyone worked in a different way when in the studio with The Avalanches - something that excited them. "Everyone has their own unique way of working. For us, that's what's been so cool, because we've only worked with each other. Sampling records is a long and kind of lonely process, so being with other musicians has been amazing. I'm learning so much!

"Some people are super fast, and some people take ages. Some people just want to talk. You have a 15-hour studio day and talk for 14 hours, and do the song in the last hour. For other musicians, it takes weeks and weeks and weeks. It's a beautiful thing!"

The band can be seen as two halves - Robbie, the perfectionist, and Tony, who balances Robbie out. "It's a wonderful friendship, and it works well in that way where sometimes he'll just call it and go, 'Mate, you're making it worse. It was great a week ago, it doesn't need all these extra lines.' That's the best thing about a friendship, getting to be honest with each other."

While things might have changed dramatically for the band since they released Since I Left You, the heart of We Will Always Love You is the same as that album that changed plunderphonics forever. Robbie still relates to the musician he was then - indeed, that fire is still inside him to this day. "I think that spark in my heart is the same and the way I hear music, and it's that sort of curiosity.

"I don't want to sound too trippy, but it's like, if I turn off the intellectual side of it - my thinking brain - I'm just making music from the heart. Then, it's probably the exact same person, the same spirit and feeling. I work on flow, I'm working on instinct. When I'm in that mode, that's exactly the same as when we were making that first record. It's not thinking, it's feeling. I've changed a lot as a person in other ways, and if I'm overthinking the music, it's probably crap! So the core of it, I think, hasn't changed."

The album's shaped around the perception of the wider cosmos that holds Earth within its grasp and this cosmic theme comes from a place of reflection. We Will Always Love You is drawn from a sample of the band The Roches, while the album's theme is in part due to learning about astrophysicist Carl Sagan's relationship with NASA creative director Ann Druyan. Back in 1977, the pair assembled 'golden records' that represented the best of humanity. These records were placed in the Voyager space probes and now exist in the cosmos. As part of these recordings exist a sample of Ann's brainwaves - a show of Carl's devotion to her, and a reflection of his chemical love.

Robbie has had a lot of time to reflect over the years, and he's come to the conclusion that we're all much more than we perceive ourselves to be - and we all exist as a point in this cosmos. "We're all very vast on a certain level, but we narrow our potential as people. We place all these labels on ourselves - I'm Robbie, I'm a musician, I'm an Australian, I'm male - but beyond that, we're so much more. I was reflecting on the vastness of the soul, as energetically as people, and that naturally relates to a bigger wider cosmic story.

"It's an internal personal journey, as well as a wider cosmic one. When we're thinking of the universe, and sound, and sound as energy travelling through the universe, these concepts naturally lend themselves to transmission/static sounds that form the starting point of the record". The first sound that listeners hear on the album is static/transmission, on Ghost Story, and for a band like The Avalanches, the ghosts that exist in their past only serve to drive the stories they tell in the future.

 Rap and hip-hop hold a special place in The Avalanches' history, and when Robbie tells us about working with Sampa The Great and Denzel Curry, it sounds like a higher power was making things happen. Take Care In Your Dreaming came about after Denzel was in Sydney for a day, and the pair traded life stories. Robbie recounts, "We spoke about my own personal journey through life. It's almost like the author of a movie or a story about going from darkness to light and overcoming difficultly. He was like 'I can relate to that'. I was really moved because he's a young dude. When I was his age, I was pretty closed off. I wouldn't talk about how I was feeling. It was really amazing that he was prepared to be so vulnerable and tell his own story in the studio at that moment with guys he had just met."

The track also features Sampa The Great, who Robbie says was "the only person we felt could complete it after Denzel had been on the track." While it didn't appear like it would work out initially, with Sampa being in India, she thought differently. "She was like 'I'll grab a studio and make it happen'. She sent the vocal hook from India and it was like the last piece of the puzzle we were finishing right before the deadline. Everyone worked really hard to make it happen."

The album's rollout extended throughout 2020 - and while it wasn't planned, they were able to trickle songs throughout the year. For fans, it was a bright spot in an otherwise dark year. Robbie explains, "All our music's pretty positive. That was one good thing, that we had the record sort of done. Even though it got delayed, we were able to put out songs throughout the year.

"We were cut off from the world - Melbourne's lockdown was full-on - but we could keep putting out bits of music into the world. It wasn't planned to be this big build-up to the album, but it ended up being that way. There was a bit of discussion with the label like 'you can delay this until 2021, and get it to sync up with some touring'. However, we just wanted to get it out. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be.

"For us, it'll always be tied to 2020."

The band has talked about touring the album, and there are plans in place to tour in the first half of the year - potentially March or April. "All we want to do is tour. For us, that's the joyful part of the process and connecting with our fans. You have no idea how beautiful it is when you're in a room or a field together with other people and the music is flowing. We might have sampled an old record - people might be singing along to Since I Left You at a show. But that vocal, that's not my voice. It's an old record from the '60s. It's just music flowing around. We're just a small part of it. The audience is there, and all these old records are getting played. Life doesn't get music better than that - it's the power of music to connect everyone."

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We Will Always Love You is a message to the world, to their fans, to their loved ones, but also to each other. When asked about his bandmate, Tony, Robbie lights up. The pair spent much of 2020 apart, but it's the small moments they shared together this year that helped bring the record to its completion. It's a friendship that extends beyond music, and a friendship that will last a lifetime. As Robbie puts it, "we'll still be those two old guys on the bench when we're in our 80s meeting up in the morning for coffee and talking about life." It's a friendship that originated at high school in Maryborough, a country town in Victoria, and it's a friendship that feels cosmic.

Isn't that what we're all chasing?