Avalanches Release No Bad Memories With Film Starring Osment — SkimNews
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- The Avalanches created their new album No Bad Memories, a 35-minute collage of vintage pop, video game bleeps, and audio logos that evokes 1980s Saturday morning cartoons and reflects on how technology distorts memory.
- Haley Joel Osment stars in the accompanying short film of the same name, playing Ken, an employee of the fictional digital archive service Takumi who collects physical memories and begins losing grip on his own identity.
- Robbie Chater and Tony Di Blasi, the core members of the Avalanches, co-directed the film with Jonathan Zawada, shooting for three weeks in Minakami, Japan, amid freezing conditions and minimal planning.
- Suzanne Ciani, pioneering electronic composer known for creating Coca-Cola’s 'pop and pour' sound, appears on the track Our Love Is Alive, which samples her 1980 explanation of her Buchla synthesizer on PBS Kids’ 3-2-1 Contact.
- The Avalanches introduced two fictional products—Superfun console and El Dorado soda—with original jingles and ads, and enlisted Osment to voice commercial interludes on the album.
- Andy Szekeres joined as a new official member for No Bad Memories, marking the first Avalanches album to feature him as part of the core lineup.
Why it matters: The release represents a maximalist evolution in the Avalanches’ decades-long exploration of sampling, where the line between personal memory and commercial sound design blurs. By embedding a narrative film and invented brands into the album experience, they challenge how audiences engage with music, turning nostalgia into both subject and medium.
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