Review Summary: Here for a good time, and a long one
Just a couple days ago, Musk’s Tesla unveiled its latest prototype: a two-person sports car that could reportedly go from 0 to 60 mph in less than a second, but also, according to Musk himself, will be able to fly. The brief demonstration the world received didn't show sustained flight per se, but it was certainly promising; whether the car will actually be able to live up to such promise remains to be seen. But it's stupefying to experience something as close to a flying car as possible—a feature long relegated to science fiction media. The videos of Tesla's new Roadster bring the DeLorean time machine from
Back To The Future to my mind. Back when that film was released, more than four decades ago, those technologies were mere dreams; what
was considered modern back then were the CDs, which have lost their dominance for a while now. But 1985 was also the year OPUS promoted their 5-inch ‘No Bad Memories’ floppy disks: not a promise of a futuristic invention (since floppy disks weren't new), but the promise of data reliability and the avoidance of data corruption. The image of a young woman smiling beneath the tagline “No Bad Memories”, emblazoned across her yellow shirt, has endured long after the technology it advertised became obsolete—a testament to how advertising shapes our worldview and how our memory is what preserves the things time leaves behind.
That tagline carried lofty goals back then, but the implications are even bigger now, at a time when everyday tragedies are impossible to ignore. We're in the middle of numerous bad memories—the promise of
no bad ones is ambitious and packaging music this way is a tall order. But when you consider The Avalanches’ track record thus far, you couldn't have asked for more capable hands to carry this task; their music has always allowed the past and future to be in sync through their knack for sampledelia. But where their previous releases settled for reminiscence through atmosphere, their latest is their most contemporary-sounding vision yet.
No Bad Memories is The Avalanches' shortest offering to date, clocking in at fifty-two minutes divided by the daunting total of thirty-one tracks on its digital version, containing numerous interludes, samples, corporate jingles and advertisements (both real and fake), up to twenty guest features and ample sonic detours, all under the package of eternal bliss by tapping into the joy that glitchy electronica and dance music can bring.
If it all sounds disjointed and uneven, you are completely right. No matter how fun and seamless the experience is and how impeccable the production is,
No Bad Memories is perhaps the most fragmentary of their career. Great ideas and melodies abound (‘I Give Everything I Have 2 U’, ‘Like Clockwork / Hit by Traffic’, ‘Under Yr Power’) but they’re given too short a runtime to blossom into unforgettable songs. A dozen out of its thirty-one tracks are interludes which barely tip over the 30-second mark and that careen the album down a different direction just when it settles into one. Its sonic palette is not only scattershot, but also somewhat du jour in its dance-pop textures and, as a result, first impressions lead to The Avalanches’ latest lacking the timeless feel that
Since I Left You and
We Will Always Love You had in spades.
But remember how I started the argument there?
No Bad Memories is a boatload of fun, even in its patchy state. The shorter cuts are still impressive, whether it’s the smooth neo-soul of ‘I Give Everything I Have 2 U’ with Jungle’s side-project Loaded Honey (that receives a lovely reprise towards the end), the Jamie xx-assisted ‘Every Single Weekend’ that follows right after or the eminently fun ‘Vida’ with Erick the Architect. Meanwhile, when the band gets to stretch their ideas further, the resulting tracks are among the stickiest of their entire career. Whether that’s the futuristic tech house of ‘Together’ early on, the psychedelia all over ‘Blue Shadows’ or the Portraits Of Tracy-led dance-pop banger ‘Can’t Get Over Losing You’, the record contains a lot of meat on its bones. Despite the constant shifts in mood and the interspersed ads,
No Bad Memories is one seamless and continuous experience, with every track/intermission/sample leading beautifully into the next. The entire affair could have ended up jarring, but this is a band well-versed in providing long, uninterrupted sonic adventures. Just like their past catalogue,
No Bad Memories can’t be picked apart or reduced to a handful of essential cuts; its purpose is to be consumed whole.
Every technical aspect of this record is immaculate, from its production, mixing and sample choices to its sequencing and choice of featured artists, ranging from established artists (such as Weezer's Rivers Cuomo and Animal Collective’s Panda Bear) to new names like Portraits Of Tracy and Barry Can't Swim. But
No Bad Memories wouldn’t be an album by The Avalanches only on the strength of its sound collages; it needs a connective narrative to bring everything into focus. The production offers the first clue: unlike earlier Avalanches records, it doesn't sound outright futuristic, or even as though it's trying to anticipate the music of tomorrow.
No Bad Memories is
influenced by the past and its electronic soundscapes are reminiscent of house music and nu-disco that were dominant in the 1990s. All of its strange electronic interludes might seem like simple filler, but consider the implications here: The Avalanches have explained that they're interested in how commercial music, jingles and audio logos become embedded in our memories. Something designed to sell you a product can also become a genuine part of your emotional history; a jingle created to practically manipulate your desires might eventually remind you of your childhood. These brief intermissions and sound bites are not to be dismissed; they help establish the artificial and commercial world in which the more personal songs exist and with repeated listens, some of those interludes carry a charm of their own.
No Bad Memories doesn't just evoke euphoria—it actively buries melancholy within its electronica. There's heartbreak and longing within the dance-floor-ready 'Can't Get Over Losing You'; there's the pressure behind trying to unwind on the weekend ("Maybe it's the cost of living / Every single weekend / No one knows where the money goes"). One narrator longs for the happiness that only pictures convey ("I'll never be the picture me, the me I love the most"); another longs for their heartache to heal. Even the cuts that are superficially euphoric carry thought-provoking themes: there's a declaration of "We've got all the time in the world" on the Rivers Cuomo-led track; the beautiful nu-disco of 'Magic Wand' orbits around croons of "Your love is right on time". Later on, towards the end of the album, the same featured artist comes back to repeat: "Our love is alive"—but is all of that true? Is time and love really a constant in this world or has advertising and nostalgia embedded the feeling that a perfect moment could last indefinitely into us? Can we really keep the good memories without the pain attached to them?
This is where we circle back to the title:
No Bad Memories. Upon first inspection, I thought it reflected a desire to preserve the happy times, per the OPUS’ floppy disk promise. But it could also be an acknowledgement that even difficult experiences can become meaningful memories. The Avalanches certainly lean into that idea, by placing artificial happiness (those interludes and countless samples) alongside genuine emotions.
No Bad Memories is more than a simple celebration of nostalgia; it's about the ways we construct our identities from fragments of the past. And that's where we can collectively find a life that truly has no sour moments, because the sadness and the joy intertwine. It’s probably the most timeless artistic statement of The Avalanches’ career, even if a first listen might not reveal a timeless record.
Like the rest of their discography,
No Bad Memories is an initially elusive and demanding listen that has a lot to say about the human condition once you get accustomed to its pacing. It’s undoubtedly disjointed, but that’s part of its appeal and charm for me. The world it creates explodes with dynamic dance and electronic sensibilities, but also offers reprise with its slower, more reflective soundscapes. And the inescapable adverts are the connective tissue: the bad feelings can be promoted as desirable goods. Great memories, fun and danceable moments, even head-scratching and melancholic times abound all over this—but no bad ones, indeed.
