The Avalanches have shared a new single, “Interstellar Love,” featuring soul musician Leon Bridges. It’s the seventh song released from their upcoming album, We Will Always Love You, due December 11 via Modular Recordings.
Bridges took inspiration from the love affair between “science communicators” Ann Druyan and Carl Sagan, according to a press release. The couple brought the studies of astronomy and astrophysics to larger audiences through their writings and television programs.
“Leon is an incredible singer, with just the most beautiful voice. He’s from Texas but we both happened to be in L.A. at the same time, which was lucky as he was on my all-time wish list,” The Avalanches’ Robbie Chater said about the collaboration. “When we were in the studio, I told him the story about Ann Druyan and Carl Sagan and how her love-struck brain waves were sent out into space on the Voyager’s Golden Record. And this song came out of that.”
“Interstellar Love” begins with smooth yet warped music box-like electronics and the looped lyric, “Is all of the lies worth the sun in your eyes.” A house drum beat fades in as the loop builds, and then Bridges comes in with the verse “Follow the light/Hold it in your hand/Our love belongs among the stars/Expanding from within.” The track opens up more from there to something uplifting, although still a bit subdued.
Video creator Jonathan Zawada spoke about the visualizer, saying it was created by showing how they turned the album cover into sound, “With special software imagery is turned into sound then edited together as a single sound piece. This audio was then layered behind the Interstellar Love music. This sound is then turned back into an image through some different software and the picture that is generated is changed; it is now a glowing visual representation of the audio signal.”
He had much more to say about it in the video’s caption, continuing “The pictures are like a secret message, hidden inside the music,” and going on to talk about how transmitting signals into the universe preserves the human spirit. “The subject matter of the imagery in Interstellar Love reflects the ideas of individuals, and by extension humanity, attempting to transcend mortal life through the creation of art, an endeavour which goes back as far as the human species itself.”
The lead single from the album was the title track, “We Will Always Love You”, featuring Blood Orange. Following singles were “Running Red Lights” featuring Pink Siifu and Rivers Cuomo of Weezer , “Wherever You Go” featuring Jamie xx, Neneh Cherry and Clypso, “Reflecting Light” featuring Sananda Maitreya and Vashti Bunyan, “Music Makes Me High” and “Take Care in Your Dreaming” featuring Denzel Curry, Tricky and Sampa the Great. “Wherever You Go” was recently performed by the group alongside the International Space Orchestra.
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