Avatars Of The Night is a new 20-song album from Sondre Lerche consisting of remixes, reworks, live versions, and demos from his album Avatars Of Love, which turns a year old tomorrow. The new comp is out today, and part of its haul of bonus material is “The Most Savage Joke,” a brand new Sondre Lerche song.

Lerche has this to say about the song:

“The Most Savage Joke” was the last song written for Avatars Of Love. It is perhaps a little ironic that it would’ve been the shortest song by far on this album with an average song running time of seven minutes. At less than three minutes, clearly it had to go. I had originally written and recorded 16 songs that year, and I deeply wanted to include all of them. I had never felt that strongly about a body of songs and recordings before. For months I tried sequencing the album as a double vinyl, including “The Most Savage Joke” in the running order. But when I realized that it would have to be a triple LP if I were to fit all 16 songs on it, I grew worried that I would just keep on writing and recording new songs in order to fill out all six vinyl sides, and that I’d simply never finish this album. I was so exhausted towards the end. Eventually I left off the two shortest songs, “Sunset Tower In The Rain” — which played like a summation of the central themes of the album; desire, loss and writing songs about desire and loss — and “The Most Savage Joke.” It was the last one to be finalized, with co-producer Matias Tellez in the summer of 2021. I loved how compact in structure, yet big in projection it grew. But in the end it felt too fatalist and cynical next to the album’s more frequently epic and poetic journeys that were so central to the collective body of work that became Avatars Of Love. It was done. I didn’t listen to ‘The Most Savage Joke’ for a year, and I almost forgot it existed. I was so caught up in touring and promoting the album. And then I heard it in an all new, refreshing light, as I was curating Avatars Of The Night. It suddenly felt like the closing argument to summarize the paradox of life and love I had needed 86 minutes to capture on Avatars Of Love: “All this beauty we parade / is not of any use to us / until it goes away.”

Listen below, where you can also stream the full Avatars Of The Night project.

Avatars Of The Night is out now on PLZ.