The Avalanches are back with a new album, a new live chapter and HAAi joining them for six shows.
by Paul Cashmere
The Avalanches will return to Australian stages in February and March 2027, with the Melbourne hometown show at Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne on Friday 5 March forming part of the Live at the Gardens series and featuring HAAi as special guest.
The national run comes just months after The Avalanches release their fourth studio album, No Bad Memories, on 16 October. The record follows a year of new music that has seen Robbie Chater, Tony Di Blasi and Andy Szekeres work with a wide-ranging group of collaborators while continuing the band’s fascination with found sounds, sampling and unexpected musical combinations.
For the Melbourne show, The Avalanches will perform in the Royal Botanic Gardens’ Observatory Precinct, with Australian-born, London-based electronic artist HAAi joining the lineup.
The Australian dates will give The Avalanches an opportunity to bring the new material into a live setting after an increasingly active international period. The band performed at Primavera Sound Barcelona and played two sold-out shows at London’s Roundhouse, before returning to Australia for smaller appearances.
One of those recent appearances was a surprise show at Sydney’s Club 77 in Darlinghurst. The intimate performance was a marked contrast to the scale of the band’s international touring and gave Australian audiences an early indication that The Avalanches were becoming increasingly active again on home soil.
The new album provides the main musical reason for the 2027 tour. No Bad Memories has been assembled from the kinds of sounds that have long fascinated The Avalanches, but this time the source material extends into the technology and advertising culture that surrounded the band’s formative years.
According to Chater, the album began with “rhythmic experiments using the sonic leftovers and hallmarks of the technologies we grew up with”. Hard drives, computer hardware, obsolete technology, start-up sounds, jingles and audio logos became part of the sonic palette.
That approach places No Bad Memories firmly within the band’s long-running interest in turning fragments of everyday culture into something musically new. Their 2000 debut, Since I Left You, was built from more than 3,500 vinyl samples and established a production style that made collage and sampling central to the band’s identity.
The Avalanches followed that record with Wildflower, which debuted at No. 1 in Australia, before releasing We Will Always Love You in 2020. Across those albums, the group has continued to combine samples with a rotating cast of vocalists and collaborators.
The guest list on No Bad Memories includes Karen O, Jamie xx, John Glacier, Rivers Cuomo, Panda Bear, Barry Can’t Swim, Ryoji Ikeda, Haruomi Hosono, Mike Patton and Portraits of Tracy.
Several of those collaborations have already been previewed during 2026. The Avalanches released “Together” with Nikki Nair, Jessy Lanza and Prentiss, “Every Single Weekend” with Jamie xx, “Blue Shadows” with Karen O, “Can’t Get Over Losing You” with Portraits of Tracy and “Far Away” with John Glacier and Khadija Al Hanafi.
HAAi brings a separate strand of electronic music to the Australian shows. Her work moves between club music, experimental sounds and leftfield electronic production, with performances at Coachella, Glastonbury, Movement and Body Movements among her international appearances.
Her new 10-track club album, DIGITiSE, is scheduled for release on 9 October through Mute Records. The record follows 2025’s HUMANiSE and draws on the energy of her all-night DJ sets.
For The Avalanches, the Australian tour also marks a return to the country where the band’s story began. More than 25 years after Since I Left You, the group has accumulated more than 700 million streams, 140 million YouTube views and more than one million global album sales, while collecting four ARIA Awards.
The Melbourne performance will be their hometown show in a six-date Australian run, with the new album providing a substantial body of material for the set alongside the catalogue that established The Avalanches internationally.
Presale tickets for Live at the Gardens begin Friday 2 October at 9.00am local time, with general public sales commencing Tuesday 6 October at 9.00am.
Friday 5 March 2027, Melbourne, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne
Tickets: General Admission $119.90, plus a $5.95 handling fee per transaction. Live at the Gardens and MG Live member presales begin Friday 2 October at 9.00am for 24 hours or until the allocation is exhausted. General sale begins Tuesday 6 October at 9.00am via Ticketmaster.
Dates
Saturday 27 February, Perth, East Perth Power Station
Sunday 28 February, Perth, East Perth Power Station
Thursday 4 March, Adelaide, Hindley St Music Hall
Friday 5 March, Melbourne, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne
Saturday 6 March, Brisbane, On The Banks
Sunday 7 March, Sydney, Sydney Opera House Forecourt
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