The Avalanches recruited Haley Joel Osment for their boldest album yet

Haley Joel Osment stars in a 35-minute film accompanying the Avalanches' new album, No Bad Memories, after the Australian duo reached out to him cold last December.

Robbie Chater and Tony Di Blasi, the core members of the Melbourne disco-pop collagists, first connected with the former child star of The Sixth Sense and Forrest Gump in the frosty, mountainous region of Minakami, Japan. Osment had been frequently liking the band's posts on Instagram, so they decided to ask him to join their latest project.

"We'd never made a film before, so it was like, 'This could be a complete disaster for him,'" Di Blasi told the Guardian, speaking in Manhattan in mid-September. "We were like, 'We don't really have anyone yet … We don't even know what we're doing.'" To their surprise, Osment signed on.

Why does this album matter?

The Avalanches' debut, 2000's Since I Left You, has become a touchstone in plunderphonics — a genre defined by its innovative use of samples. In the quarter-century since, the group have built an ardent cult following.

Their new record, No Bad Memories, pushes that sample-driven approach further. According to the duo, the material draws on sources including children's science television shows and Tunisian music.

The pair describe their creative method as one of curiosity without deadline. Their advice: "Spend time going down rabbit holes."

What comes next?

With Osment on board and a 35-minute film ready to accompany the album, the Avalanches are moving from studio collagists to multimedia storytellers — a shift their cult following will watch closely when No Bad Memories arrives.