Alt-J (stylised as alt-J, real name Δ) are an English indie rock band. Their lineup includes Joe Newman (guitar/lead vocals), Thom Sonny Green (drums), Gus Unger-Hamilton (keyboards/vocals), and formerly Gwilym Sainsbury (guitar/bass), met at University of Leeds in 2007. In their second year of studies, Newman showed Sainsbury some of his own songs and the pair began recording on GarageBand in their hall rooms with Sainsbury acting as producer. The band’s sound arose from living in student halls, where noise had to be kept to a minimum, so that they were unable to use bass guitars or bass drums.
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 in London and featured the tracks “Breezeblocks”, “Hand-Made”, “Matilda”, and “Tessellate”. A 7″ single containing “Bloodflood” and “Tessellate” was released by Loud & Quiet in October 2011. Their first 2012 release for Infectious Music was the triangle-shaped 10″ “Matilda”/”Fitzpleasure”. It was followed by “Breezeblocks” which preceded their first album. An Awesome Wave was also produced by Charlie Andrew and compiled at Iguana Studios, Brixton, where the band recorded tracks during the studio’s spare time. Their debut album was released in May 2012 in the UK, Europe, and Australia, and in September 2012 in the USA. The album received some favourable reviews and was described as a “captivating blend of insatiable grooves and profound poignancy”. It received a score of 4.8/10 on Pitchfork.
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. The band would later describe the event as “life-changing, there was a sense of [being] imposters, that the band had somehow got this far without not being a real band, we’re just guys from Leeds who muddled through it and magicked a Mercury award”. The title “An Awesome Wave” was taken from the Bret Easton Ellis novel American Psycho.
In January 2014, the band announced that Sainsbury had decided to leave the group, and that they remained friends. 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., in October and ended in Washington, D.C., in November. In June 2014, they announced their second album This Is All Yours, that was released in September 2014. This Is All Yours went straight to Number 1 on the UK’s Official Albums Chart. It received a score of 4.0/10 from Pitchfork. alt-J headlined the September 2015 edition of Boston Calling Music Festival. As a replacement for Sainsbury, Cameron Knight became a supporting member for alt-J’s live shows.
In March 2017 alt-J began teasing their third studio album on their social media accounts with an audio clip captioned “00110011 01110111 01110111” (Binary code for “3ww”). Stereogum reported later that day that the band’s third album would be titled Relaxer and was scheduled for release in June 2017. In 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. Three weeks later, on 29 March, they released “In Cold Blood”, the second single from Relaxer. In anticipation of their third album, the band released an online video game, whose soundtrack was 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.
On 24 May 2017 alt-J released “Adeline”, the third single from Relaxer. The album was released shortly afterwards, in June 2017. “Deadcrush”, the fourth single from the album, was released in July and was featured as a soundtrack in the FIFA 18 game. Fifth single “Pleader” arrived in September 2017. Several tracks from Relaxer have since been remixed by a diverse array of artists. In September 2021, the band announced their first single since 2018, titled “U&ME”. The single’s release coincided with the announcement of their fourth album, The Dream, which was released in February 2022.
