alt-J
cupboards fully stocked
A
t first, the members of British alternative
outfit alt-J didn't notice much difference
in their lives after winning their homeland's prestigious Mercury Prize in 2012 for the
ethereal debut An Awesome Wave. It was merely
business as usual when they took time off tour to
attend the ceremony, make friends with other
competition contenders like The Maccabees and
Lianne La Havas, and then jump right back out
on the road the next day, as if nothing unusual
had happened. "We worked so hard, and toured
for so long, that we just didn't have much time to
sit around thinking about the Mercury Prize,"
says remarkably down-to-Earth band keyboardist Gus Unger-Hamilton. "We just had to
get on with the job at hand, really."
And then? Things started to get weird. The
group – which featured guitarist Gwil Sainsbury,
vocalist Newman, and drummer Thom Green,
who had met while attending Leeds University
in 2007 – was offered a Russian corporate gig in
Iceland, in the dead of winter, which initially
seemed like a no-brainer. But there was a catch,
which they quickly figured out upon arriving. "It
was all laid out like an authentic Viking feast,"
says Unger-Hamilton, chuckling at the surreal
sight. "And one of the guys was like 'Listen –
everyone's going to be dressed up as Vikings –
we'd really love it if you guys dressed as Vikings,
as well!' And our first reaction was like 'Fuck!
Are you kidding? We are serious musicians!' But
then we immediately thought better of it, like
'Well, hang on – this whole thing is ridiculous, so,
hey, When in Rome!'" Or Iceland, when mead
and roast ox are being served.
"And we did it. We dressed up as Vikings,
and we had immense fun," the musician continues, unashamedly. "And the only person who
knew who we were as a band was this guy who
booked us, and who was organizing the event.
None of the other people knew who we were, so
they all pretty much ignored us. So we got quite
drunk and had a really good time playing to a
load of oblivious Russian telecommunication
managers, and then we managed to get out of
there in one piece." Unfortunately, they had to
return the realistic Viking costumes before exiting the premises. "We weren't allowed to keep
them," Unger-Hamilton sighs. "But I actually
have a photo of us somewhere, all dressed as
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2014
Vikings."
More unforeseen events ensued. Earlier this
year, as alt-J – named for a computer keyboard
function – was preparing to get down to brass
studio tacks on its high-pressure sophomore set
This is All Yours, Sainsbury suddenly announced
his departure. A la Interpol bassist Carlos
Dengler, who recently left that band for similar
reasons, the guitarist had grown tired of the
demanding lifestyle of non-stop touring. Which
is the only way a modern group can make any
money these days, admits Unger-Hamilton,
"since no one's buying records anymore. So Gwil
really loved this band – he just didn't want to be
in a band. And I think we saw that this was going
to happen at some point, but it happened sooner
than we thought it would. But when he said he
was going to go, it wasn't like 'Why?!' -- we were
like 'We understand. We know why – you
weren't happy'."
With Green taking over more sampler duties,
the trio rose to the occasion, however. For anyone who had grown fond of Awesome's quirky,
intricate complexities like "Breezeblocks,"
"Fitzpleasure," and "Tesselate" – so intellectual ,
in fact, that they shouldn't have climbed the UK
charts the way they did – there's even more to
love on This is All Yours. Like Awesome, it opens
with another otherworldly chorale "Intro," then
quietly slips into a spacious, reverently-plucked
suite inspired by "Nara," the Japanese city with a
Central Park where wild deer roam free ( alt-J
sees this as a metaphor for their own post-Prize
creative freedom; they can literally record anything they want now). Just to test their newfound
wings, they took a nominal 20 minutes to pen the
straightforward blues-rocker "Left Hand Free,"
and then included a vocal sample from one of
their biggest fans – Miley Cyrus – in the blipblipping "Hunger of the Pine." Lyrically, the
wordy Newman references the writer Iris
Murdoch and – in the futuristic processional
"The Gospel of John Hurt" – the splattery chestburster scene from Ridley Scott's classic sci-fi
flick Alien. If you listen close, you can even hear