The Avalanches' No Bad Memories is out now: 31 tracks built from jingles, with Karen O, Jamie xx and Rivers Cuomo

The Avalanches' fourth album, No Bad Memories, is out today, 16 October 2026, on Modular Recordings. It is the first full album from the Australian group in six years, since We Will Always Love You in 2020, and it runs to 31 tracks.

If you are new to them: The Avalanches are Robbie Chater, Tony Di Blasi and Andrew Szekeres, a Melbourne group who built their 2000 debut Since I Left You almost entirely from samples, stitched together so closely that it plays like one long daydream. Wildflower followed in 2016, then We Will Always Love You in 2020.

The idea: advertising as memory

The concept this time is how jingles, start-up sounds and forgotten audio logos lodge in our heads. The group describes the record as a look at how commercial sound becomes part of memory, both the warm nostalgia of it and the more insidious side. Computer start-up chimes and VCR clunks sit alongside the sampled material, and the record includes skits and fake ads voiced by Mike Patton and Haley Joel Osment.

The artwork is by Jonathan Zawada, who also directed and animated the visualizer for the latest single.

Who is on it

The guest list is long. Confirmed contributors include:

• Karen O on "Blue Shadows"
• Jamie xx on "Every Single Weekend"
• Nikki Nair, Jessy Lanza and Prentiss on "Together"
• Portraits of Tracy on "Can't Get Over Losing You"
• John Glacier and Khadija Al Hanafi on "Far Away"
• Rivers Cuomo on "All The Time In The World"
• Haruomi Hosono on "The Pavements Light"
• Barry Can't Swim, who worked with the group on "Magic Wand" and "Our Love Is Alive"

Samples worth knowing about

"Magic Wand" is built from a 1970s Renee Acker track, with its chorus assembled from her fade-out ad libs. "Our Love Is Alive" draws on Suzanne Ciani's music lessons for Sesame Street. Those are the kind of deep-cut sources the group has always used, and they are the clearest link back to the debut.

The run-up

Singles arrived across the summer: "Blue Shadows" in July, "Far Away" on 8 September, and a remix package for "Together" on 2 October. Several guests, among them Jamie xx and Nikki Nair, are artists we already follow: see their pages at /artist/jamie-xx and /artist/nikki-nair.

How to approach 31 tracks

This is a guide, not a review. Our suggestion for a first pass: start with the singles, then follow the guests you already know, and leave the skits for the second listen, when you can tell which of the fake ads are doing real work. Thirty-one tracks is a lot of record, and the group's records have always rewarded playing straight through.