Leeds alt rockers Alt-J have announced the title of their forthcoming third studio album. Titled ‘Relaxer’, it will be with us June 9th through Canvasback Music. Watch the glitchy low-res video of opening track ‘3WW’ below. As you might hear, ‘3WW’ seems to be a step away from the band’s usual sonic conventions. Tracklist: 01 3WW 02 In Cold Blood.
Before we consider the eight-track, 40-minute, perfectly poised,symmetrically adroit, boldly inventive brilliance of 'RELAXER', the third album by alt-J, consider this...
A Mercury Prize and an Ivor Novello win with their debut. A MadisonSquare Garden sell-out and a Latitude headline with their second. NumberOne in the UK, Number Four in the US; three Brit nominations here, aGrammy nomination there. Three years of world touring that have forged alive reputation as fierce as the trio are tall (that is, very).
Quietly, resolutely, impressively, singularly, alt-J have becomeone of the biggest British bands of whatever it is we're calling the21st century's second decade (the 'Teenies'? Ugh, no thanks). Art-electro, math-folk, hymnal-rock, call it what you will - none ofit's wholly wrong, all of it is someway right - but the music made byJoe Newman (singer/guitarist), Gus Unger-Hamilton(keyboards/vocals) and Thom Green (drums/electronics) is themuscular sound of cutting edge innovation pumped by a melodicallybleeding heart. Ten years after forming at Leeds University,alt-J are a post-guitar group for the new-pop generation. And asaudiences all over the world know, when they get going, they rock hard.
Gentlemen, your highlights of the 16-month tour in support of 2014's'This Is All Yours', the follow- up to 2012's 'An Awesome Wave'?
Newman: 'Israel. We didn't know we were big in Israel. Whathad happened was, after military service, young Israelis are encouragedto go on a sort of self-finding mission, to countries that will let themin. Often that's South American countries, and a lot of these kids endup at this one hostel in Brazil. And apparently 'An Awesome Wave'was played around the clock, exclusively, at this hostel. So as thesekids were finding themselves and seeing the wider world, they had us asa soundtrack. They were glued to our album as an important part of theirfreedom. And once they got back to Israel, seemingly everyone knew us.So when we went there we had to double the shows. We played to 24,000people in two days.'
Green: 'Madison Square Garden. I'd heard of the place, butthat was about it. Most of the hype was coming from other people. I knewwe'd sold it out but I didn't know what that meant. We'd obviouslystarted out playing a small venue in New York and worked our way upquite quickly. So walking out in front of all those people wasincredible. And by that time we'd been playing a lot, so the light showwas good and big, we had great sound engineer, and we were very in tunewith each other live. And luckily the songs carried in that atmosphere.I'm still amazed to think we sold out Madison Square Garden, even moreso than the O2.'
Unger-Hamilton: 'India. We went there twice. The first time,we got there and it's the most famous I've ever felt in my life! We'd goto parties and people were crowding around us. I thought, 'wow, this ishow far music has taken us...' When you start a band you think, 'it'd begreat to play Brixton Academy.' You don't ever think you're going to beplaying to 10,000 people in India.'
In December 2015, alt-J finally made it home. They had gonestraight from touring 'An Awesome Wave' into writing andrecording 'This Is All Yours', then straight into touring that. It wastime for a rest and a reboot.
'There weren't any fallings out,' clarifies Newman. 'Itwas just three very close friends who had just spent a lot of time onthe road who needed to go somewhere where it wasn't about music ortouring or capitalising on the demand.'
So they all went home to London. Newman watched a million films. Green released a solo album, 'High Anxiety' (under the name ThomSonny Green), 21 tracks of glittery, glitchy instrumentalelectronics. Unger-Hamilton became involved in a pop-uprestaurant (it recently popped-down, but only in anticipation of findinga permanent Hackney home).
Then, late last summer, they decided it was time to get back in thesaddle. So they did what a now- globally-successful band who'd made twoalbums in low-key London studios with one producer would obviously do:they didn't change a thing.
It's a mark of alt-J's confidence and sense of musical self thatthey didn't need to go the 'traditional' third-album route (i.e.a year bouncing around the world's most expensive studios, wrestlingwith writers' block and newfound ayahuasca habits, with production by MrHotshot Hitmaker). They again bunkered in London, spending the latterportion of 2016 in a no-frills rehearsal space in Stoke Newington. Thenthey re-connected with producer Charlie Andrew. He is, the threesomeavow, like the fourth member of alt-J.
'As much as there's our chemistry,' notes Newman, 'it'sabout Charlie's hard work as well.' Between the end of last year andthe beginning of February this year, the foursome moved between eastLondon's Strongroom, Brixton's Iguana Studio (Andrew's home base), northLondon's The Church (owned by Paul Epworth) and history's Abbey Road. The song ideas, mostly already worked out in the rehearsal space,flowed.
An early standout was 'Hit Me Like That Snare'. Now it sounds like TheStooges produced by James Murphy. But originally, admits Newman,the references was very different.
'It started with a riff that I was playing around with a year before.But I'd kinda left it because it sounded too much like 'Decks Dark on AMoon Shaped Pool'. But then I started playing it with really heavydistortion and we recorded it as a jam.'
Talking of distortion, Newman's voice - no stranger to atheatrical curveball - has never felt more unhinged than on ...'Snare',the frontman oozing a nasal punk whine. The work of studio jiggery-pokery?
'No, I just pulled a lot of faces! I was very much out of my comfortzone and I went over the top into the realm of silly.'
Lyrically, too, he reached far, linking a near-death experience on amotorway ('we aquaplaned in the car and I shouted out 'fuck my lifein half!', which I thought was a great phrase for a song'), sexparties in sex hotels ('we didn't visit any on tour,' is theirline and they're sticking to it) and a post-Brexit frustration that theliberal world was going to hell in a handcart.
Plus, the bleeping out of a single word: f***ing. That is, fisting.
'It's so arbitrary, that bleeping,'Unger-Hamilton notescheerfully. For alt-J, the devil is in the f*** detail.
As much is evident in the gripping 'Deadcrush', currently Green'sfavourite. Is it Kanye West gone gothic? Maybe. 'It's not hiphop,' the band's backstop producer clarifies, 'but the beats areall electronic, there's a heavy sample of a shaker, and a droney synthundercurrent.'
'And,' adds Unger-Hamilton, 'there's Joe singing with aBee Gees falsetto on the chorus.'
'I am wondering if I'll be able to maintain that on a year-long worldtour,' frowns the frontman.
In light(er) counterpoint is the delicate unfurling of '3WW', the openingsong and the first track to be released from 'RELAXER'. It begins withUnger-Hamilton, on vocals, embarking on a Chaucer-meets-NickDrake (pre)amble: 'There was a wayward lad stepped out onemorning...'
From there, a meandering, hypnotic exploration of the 'three wornwords' referred to by the title: I love you. This meansfield-recordings (a campfire crackling, water splashing) and the line'the girls from the pool say hi' - spoken by the threesome'sgirlfriends, delivered from an actual swimming pool. Talk about Methodrecording.
'The girls from the pool say hi' is a note left from the girls,'says Newman by way of explaining '3WW's thought-through narrativethrust, 'and having them say that - in the pool - is a deeper way ofactually making you feel like you're in the moment.'
It's about immersion, something these thrill-seeking sonic architectsaccomplish with practised, easygoing ease. You can hear it 'In ColdBlood', which builds to a thrilling, brassy, bleepy, shouty climax. Youcan hear it, too, in the spectral 'Last Year', the calendrical diary of adying relationship, which features accompaniment from Marika Hackman(she also sang on 'This Is All Yours').
You want to dive deeper? alt-J will take you there, on 'House OfThe Rising Sun'. Characteristically, it's more than 'just' acover, in the same way that the appearance of Miley Cyrus singing'I'm a female rebel' on the last album's 'Hunger Of The Pine' wasmore than 'just' a sample. Rather the band, with scholarlyintent, went back to the core of the song, stripping the varnish fromThe Animals' version and finding the woody grain in Woody Guthrie'sversion of the lyrics.
Then they added 20 classical guitarists, playing all at once, recordedover two intense hours at The Church. 'Twenty hand movements, 20squeaks on strings,' states Newman of their six-stringsymphony, 'that gives a really odd, percussive almost subliminalfeel.'
Finally, ultimately, epically, comes 'Pleader', the album's closing song.alt-J see it as a foundational song for 'RELAXER'. Live, itpromises to take the roof off at all the festival spots the trio havelined up this summer (one of them rather, shall we say, iconic). It'sone of six songs on the album to feature a 30-piece string section,recorded at Abbey Road. But that's not even the half of its majesty.
'Pleader' takes lyrical cues from Richard Llewellyn's classic 1939 novel'How Green Was My Valley', and vocal drama from the massed voicesof the boys of Ely Cathedral, recorded in situ with accompaniment fromthe building's mighty organ. As a former chorister at the cathedral,Unger-Hamilton claims that the band secured 'a sweet discount - wepaid the boys a Victorian wage,' he says, suppressing a cackle.
Such (possibly made-up) callous abandon is at odds with what Q hasdescribed as the song's 'mighty ecclesiastical swell', which is alovely way of describing 'Pleader's heartfelt, heavenly glory. 'It'salmost a secular piece of religious music,' offersUnger-Hamilton.
'For me the song is very hymnal,' adds Newman. 'And thebook is just beautifully written. You could extract so many visual ideasjust from one sentence, so I just collected loads of them and then filtered through an alt-J world.'
This is 'RELAXER': eight tracks, 40 minutes, focused and concise, bothout-there and in-here. As Unger-Hamilton acknowledges: 'We'vealways liked our music to be headphone music, that takes you on a bit ofa journey. This album goes one step further, a journey into your ownmind. It's quite trippy - even though none of us are trippers,' heinsists.
The album title, Green adds, felt apposite. 'RELAXER' wasoriginally the name of a track I made last year, and then it was in theoriginal lyrics for 'Deadcrush'. And after that, it just seemed to fit thealbum overall - and we do always want our albums to be listened to as asingle piece of music.' Still, it wasn't always that concise, orthat straightforward. 'At one point I was really pushing for 'SpaceWhales Nature's Starships',' says Newman. 'Which I stillthink is a great title.' There's an uncomfortable silence beforeUnger-Hamilton pipes up. 'That doesn't hashtag so well,'he observes, correctly.
Alt-J
31 Jul, 2018
alt-J today debut the video for 'In Cold Blood' (feat. Pusha T) (TwinShadow Version). Starring King Push himself in IRL and digital form, anddirected by Osean, the clip takes the viewer into the hazy digital worldof 'REDUXER', a project first hinted at last month when Pusha T and LAsynth pop polymath Twin Shadow both joined alt-J for a surpriseperformance of 'In Cold Blood' on 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert',before swiftly releasing the studio version of the collaboration.
'Pusha and alt-J have two completely different styles and coloring themtogether makes for an interesting sound,' explains the director Osean. 'Instead of representing the 2 more so as a person to person, I decidedto represent them as more person to experience, or person to land. Theway Pusha is acting in the video is the same way I feel he acted in thesong. He flows through the song as his experience in someone else'sworld trying to find his place. And so in the video during the alt-Jpart, I wanted Pusha to basically experience alt-J the experience.'
17 Jul, 2018
Last weekend alt-J headlined Latitude Festival for a second time, andthey headline festivals throughout Europe this summer. They todayannounce a new autumn tour of the UK and Ireland, taking in six shows,including a very special performance at the legendary Royal Albert Hall. See their website for full worldwide dates and ticket information.
Exclusive access to tickets for the UK tour dates will be availablebefore they go on sale to the general public for those who preorder'REDUXER' via the artist store before 7am on Friday 20th July. Thepriority ticket access window will open at 9am Wednesday 18th July andclose at 8am on Friday 20th July. Tickets will go on general sale at 9amon Friday 20th July.
17 Jul, 2018
alt-J today announce 'REDUXER', a set of 11 incredible reinterpretationsof songs from their award winning third album 'RELAXER', reimagined by ahost of fans, friends and peers, including a globe-straddlingcross-section of some of the world's most influential and prolific hiphop artists and producers.
Putting their own indelible vocals on the songs are, amongst others, Grammy -nominated US hip hop high flyer GoldLink , platinum-certifiedParisian rapper Lomepal , Berlin powerhouse Kontra K , Dublin-bornbreakthrough rapper Rejjie Snow , Australian auteur Tuka , Puerto Ricanrapper PJ Sin Suela and London's acclaimed Little Simz .
The project was first hinted at last month when Virginia Beach hip hopsuperstar Pusha T a nd LA synth pop polymath Twin Shadow both joined alt-J for a surprise performance of 'In Cold Blood' on The Late Show WithStephen Colbert , before swiftly releasing the studio version of thecollaboration. 'I t's no secret that we love and are influenced byhip-hop, and it's always been a dream of ours to work with hip-hopartists in reimagining our music,' the band explained. 'With 'REDUXER'that dream has come true. We couldn't be happier with the results. Thisalbum is truly global, featuring rappers and producers from all over theworld. After a very long time in the making, we are stoked to share itwith you all.'
A second track is debuted today, a new version of 'Deadcrush' reworked bylegendary producer The Alchemist and Latin American productionpowerhouse Trooko, and featuring the unmistakable vocals of hip hopiconoclast Danny Brown. ' Deadcrush' (feat. Danny Brown) (Alchemist xTrooko Version) is available to stream and download everywhere and as aninstant-grat now. ' REDUXER' i s available 28 September via InfectiousMusic and can be preordered now on limited white vinyl and CD.
13 Jul, 2018
The award winning Latitude festival takes place at Henham Park in Suffolk from 13th to 15th July, and features many Primary Talent International artists, including the Sunday night headliners Alt-J.
Friday 13th July ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead ...Hinds
Saturday 14th July ...Jacob Banks
Sunday 15th July ...Alt-J (Headliner) ...Wolf Alice
...and on other days yet to be announced.
...Connie Constance ...Yellow Days ...BLOXX ...Bryde ...Husky Loops ...Sorry ...Gaffa Tape Sandy ...Malena Zavala ...Meggie Brown
19 Jun, 2018
Alt-J performed 'In Cold Blood' on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, with special guests Pusha T & Twin Shadow.
11 Apr, 2018
The first weekend of the Coachella Music & Arts Festival, begins this Friday 13th April in Indio, California. Many Primary Talent International & Decked Out artists will be taking part.
Friday, 13th April ...REZZ
Saturday, 14th April ...Alt-J ...Hundred Waters ...Party Favor ...Busy P ...Django Django
Sunday, 15th April ...Jacob Banks
05 Apr, 2018
Alt-J will team up with the charity LIFEbeat, who will promote sexual health by distributing free condoms, on the band's North American tour.
23 Feb, 2018
alt-J receive a 4 Star live review in The Independent for their intimate performance at London's The Garage, in aid of the War Child charity.
17 Feb, 2018
alt-J on what they have in store for their forthcoming headline slot, at this year's Latitude festival.
15 Feb, 2018
The VO5 NME Awards were held last night at Brixton Academy, London with wins for many Primary Talent International artists. Congratulations to...