alt-J have previously secured three spots in the Triple J Hottest 100 with their debut album ‘An Awesome Wave’.
While their sophomore album debuted at #2 in Australia the following year. There’s no denying the British band can do no wrong in the eyes of their unrelenting fan base down under.
The trio are touring the country in December, gracing the stages of spacious, large-scale venues allowing plenty of room for massive crowds and ensuring the appropriate acoustics for their massive sounds.
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“We’re super pumped to come back to Australia,” exclaims keyboardist and vocalist, Gus Unger-Hamilton.
“I love the fans. I love the food. I love the weather. In the past, we’ve had incredible shows in places like Sydney and Melbourne. I’ve truly never seen crowds quite like it.
“I don’t know what it is about you Australians, you seem to respond so well to our music. Perhaps it’s simply because you guys are pretty cool.”
The tour is promoting their 2017 record ‘Relaxer’, an ambitious album brimming with emotional builds and intricate melodies, weaving together acoustic and classic compositions with psychedelic instrumentation, choral harmonies and electronic embellishments.
According to Gus, the record is like “delving into a video game”, a description that mirrors the band’s pixelated album artwork, a concept inspired by '90s web game ‘LSD: Dream Emulator’.
They even released a similar version on their website, allowing the ‘player’ to move in first-person perspective around a low-polygon, psychedelic word to the soundtrack of ‘3WW’.
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“There’s no doubt we’ve changed and progressed our sound since the debut album, but we’re definitely still bouncing off the initial energy we first felt when we started making music in a garage almost ten years ago,” Gus explains.
“I still remember the moment we realised we actually had something special, something we knew we had to share with people, something we knew we had to take further or at least try to.”
Like most musical careers, alt-J’s has had its ups and downs; the band’s future was even uncertain when bassist Gwil Sainsbury decided to leave the group in 2014.
“But things have been relatively smooth sailing while writing and recording ‘Relaxer’. I feel like we’ve found our groove,” Gus says.
“One thing I’ll admit is that I admire the bands who can piece together a killer song in a short period of time. That’s not really part of our process. It takes time, sometimes a week or more to write or perfect one track.”
Click here to read our review of alt-J's Brisbane show in 2015.
On top of songwriting and recording, alt-J even recently released a short film to accompany new single ‘Pleader’, a haunting six-minute clip venturing far from the standards of your typical music video, featuring stunning visual effects and emotional performances based on Richard Llewelyn’s book, ‘How Green Was My Valley’.
“Film is definitely something we’re all interested in, and have been for a long time. The fact that we can use music as a creative outlet for another creative pursuit is very, very cool,” Gus says.
“Hopefully this comes across in our upcoming live shows, as well. We want it to be as visually captivating as possible, it’s an aspect we really take into consideration.”
As for the tour’s set list? “It’s still being decided, but what I do know is that we always try to mix it up. “You can’t keep playing the same songs in the same general order. We like to change it around as much as possible, it keeps it interesting for the viewers, and makes it more interesting for us to perform.
“Touring can be tough, absolutely. Nobody likes sitting in an airport after their flight has been delayed for three or more hours. But for the most part, touring is a hell of a lot of fun.
“We’re essentially getting paid to travel the world and make music with our best mates. You can’t get a job much better than that. We can’t wait.”
alt-J Tour Dates
Tue 5 Dec - AEC Theatre (Adelaide)Thu 7 Dec - Sidney Myer Music Bowl (Melbourne)
Sat 9 Dec - ICC Sydney Theatre
Sun 10 Dec - The Riverstage (Brisbane)
