A TIME FOR CHANGE
Alt-J (written as alt-J) is an English indie rock band formed in 2007 in Leeds. The band’s symbol is the Greek letter delta, Δ, which can symbolize change or difference in math and science. Alt-J was formed when Gwil Sainsbury (guitar/bass), Joe Newman (guitar/lead vocals), Gus Unger-Hamilton (keyboards/vocals) and Thom Sonny Green (drums) met at Leeds University in 2007.
After graduating, the band moved to Cambridge where they spent several months working on their music before signing a deal with Infectious Music in December 2011. Their self-titled 4-track demo EP, was recorded with producer in London and featured the tracks “Breezeblocks”, “Hand-Made”, “Matilda”, and “Tessellate”. It’s fair to say you have heard the song “Breezeblocks” as it had a really long air time on the radio and has been used in quite a few tv shows and movies like the Netflix original Daybreak. An Awesome Wave, their first full album was compiled of the EP songs plus 10 more. Their debut album was released on 28 May 2012 in the UK, Europe, and Australia, and on 18 September 2012 in North America via and received largely favourable reviews and was described as a “captivating blend of insatiable grooves and profound poignancy”.
In April 2012, alt-J and played a minor headlining tour around the United Kingdom and Ireland in October of that year and were featured regularly on summer festivals. They also did concert tour in the United States in December 2012 and performed at the Laneway Festival tour in Australia. In November 2012 the band were announced as the winners of the Mercury Prize for their album. Besides the prize-money, the band saw an increase in their profile resulting in An Awesome Wave reaching 13 in the UK album chart.
In early June 2014, alt-J announced a 2014 tour to take place in North America over October and November. The 23-day tour started in Vancouver, B.C. on 14 October and ended in Washington, D.C. on 19 November. On 9 June 2014, they announced their second album This Is All Yours, that was released on 22 September 2014. This Is All Yours went straight to Number 1 on the UK’s Official Albums Chart, this album also contains one of my favorite songs by them, “Left Hand Free”. alt-J headlined the September 2015 edition of Boston Calling Music Festival.
On 3 March 2017 alt-J began teasing their third studio album on their social media accounts with an audio clip captioned “00110011 01110111 01110111” (the ASCII code for “3ww”). The band reported later that day that their third album would be titled Relaxer and was scheduled for release on 2 June 2017. On 6 March 2017 alt-J released “3WW,” which features lead singer Ellie Rowsell of Wolf Alice, as a digital single and announced dates for the Relaxer Tour in support of the album. In anticipation of their third album, the band released an online video game, soundtracked by their single “3WW,” as well as announcing in May 2017 that they would be playing a five-date UK tour at seaside venues, starting on 4 September 2017. The album was released shortly afterwards, on 2 June 2017, to generally favorable reviews. “Deadcrush,” the fourth single from the album, was featured as a soundtrack in the popular FIFA 18 game. Relaxer was nominated for the 2017 Mercury Prize.
On 28 September 2018 an alternative version of Relaxer was released. The album, titled REDUXER, is a “rap heavy do-over” of the previous year’s record.