Just like the changing of the seasons, every few months we here at inthemix get some tiny skerrick of information about the long awaited second full length from Australian sample-delica legends The Avalanches nearing completion. And since we’re like a dog with a bone when it comes to Avalanches news we end up getting all excited about the prospect of a return from The Avalanches, we write a buzzing news report and we end up whimpering in the corner when nothing else happens. Frankly, it’s getting a bit ridiculous.

But this time it’s different! Well, no it’s actually not. Today we have more vague speculation-fueling word about the next Avalanches LP, this time coming from the group’s label boss and current Vivid LIVE curator Steve Pavlovic who told The Music Network that the new record is, gulp, “finished”.

“They’re finished and they’re celebrating,” the Modular kingpin proclaimed. “They’re going to have a little party to celebrate finishing it. The next stage will see the album go to someone to mix.”

So according to Pav the album’s recording process is complete, but it just needs a final mix down before we get a first taste before the end of the year. That’s great and all but skeptics will of course recall that in 2008 the same guy said that he would be receiving a finished copy of the disc on Christmas day of that year.

Naturally this is just us grumbling when we don’t get what we want so the optimist inside is telling us to believe the spiel. And even if we can’t, ITM Avalanches fans can’t seem to lose faith in the sprawling collective, just last year voting Since I Left You as the #1 album of the last decade.