Perfectionism and sample clearance issues also contributed to the 16-year wait between albums.

The Avalanches have revealed that an autoimmune disease diagnosis was one of the reasons why their second album Wildflower took so long to arrive.

The Australian group’s debut album Since I Left You arrived in 2000, but it took 16 years until the announcement of Wildflower, which is finally given its worldwide release on July 8.

As Avalanches member Robbie Chater reveals in an interview with Pitchfork, one of the reasons the album took so long is because he was left unable to create music for three years during the mid-2000s after being diagnosed with several different autoimmune diseases.

Sample clearance and perfectionism are cited by Chater as another reason for the record’s delay. “We had to make a lot of music to break through that perfection thing and really start to embrace all our imperfections,” he explains.

“As far as samples, they started clearing stuff years ago, but then there would be some hold-up and they’d have to go back and renegotiate. People would give permission for us to use the sample, and then a certain amount of time would elapse and they would Google who the band is and be like, “Oh shit, I can ask for more money.” That sort of thing took forever.”

Wildflower was finally announced last month, and features guest appearances from Danny Brown, MF Doom, Toro y Moi, Ariel Pink and Father John Misty among others. It was released a week early on Apple Music on July 1, but only in the US.