Alt-J interview: The London trio discuss The Dream, making music in lockdown and their favourite cemetery

On first listen, it would seem scarcely believable that Alt-J’s new album the Dream was completed in 2021.

Hit single U&Me sounds straight out of 90s California, and most instruments were recorded through an antique 1960s guitar amp.

However, in typically crafty and off-kilter lyrics, Get Better reveals the strange world that the album was created in.

Joe Newman sings: “I’ll start the day with tiramisu, raise a spoon to frontline workers.

“An underfunded principle, they risk all to be there for us.”

And instead of mentions of regions of Japan, there is a rare reference to their home city of London.

“A younger you and a younger me, meeting at the Serpentine - I am yours, you are mine,” the song continues.

Alt-J won the Mercury Prize with their 2012 debut An Awesome Wave, and the follow up This Is All Yours hit number one in the album charts.

After their first album, bassist Gwil Sainsbury left the band, and now Newman, keyboardist Gus Unger-Hamilton and drummer Thom Green operated as trio.

For the pandemic they hunkered down in “beautiful London”, as Newman calls it, delaying their new record, so it’s no surprise that the seismic event filtered into their writing.

But Alt-J think that the delays caused by lockdowns have resulted in a better record.

“We took a year off in 2019, we’d been touring our albums back to back, so we felt it was time to breath and take a bit of time off,” Unger-Hamilton tells LondonWorld.

“We came back into the studio in 2020 full of excitement and enthusiasm to be back working together, and then the pandemic happened, so it was a bit of a false start.

“The album probably should have been finished in 2020, but it ended up being finished in 2021 because of all the lockdowns, and I actually think the album is better for that.

“For the first time ever we had no deadline, we had our own studio to write and record in, which was really nice.

“The rhythm of lockdowns, and the cycle of working and not working, actually produced a good work-life balance for us and made the album a lot better.”

Singer Newman agrees: “I think there’s a good chunk of the album which wouldn’t have existed if not for the pandemic.

“We were just given an extraordinary amount of time.

“I think also knowing everything was on pause, and the music industry was just trying to stay afloat and survive, there was no attention on us to do anything any time soon.

“So we just had all this time to do what we were doing anyway, just with a lot less time.

“So there were some great songs which came out of that.”

As well as Get Better, Newman references The Actor, Powders and Philadelphia which were inspired from the strange situations of the last two years.

“I think some of the songs that stewed the most were written during the pandemic,” he says.

And the band were fortunate that they were able to wait until they were allowed back in their studio, in De Beauvoir Town, together.

Unger-Hamilton says: “I feel that making music is one of those things which is better done the old fashioned way, together in a room and not over Zoom.

“I’m sure it can be done, and I’m sure many people did it like that, but we thought, because we don’t have to, we’ll just bide our time until we can get back together.”

In May, after the album’s release on February 11, the band are embarking on their first tour since the pandemic, with three shows at Brixton Academy.

However Unger-Hamilton remains skeptical that gigs will go back to normal right away.

“It will be great to be back on tour again,” he says.

“I still think there will be some hesitancy from people to go to gigs in the way that we used to live our lives all the time before the pandemic.

“We used to carry viruses and illnesses, but we didn’t really think about it.

“You didn’t think if I go to Brixton Academy tonight how many people will be ill, and what if I’m stood next to someone who has got a nasty cough.

“People who did think like that were hypochondriacs or germaphobes, but the pandemic has turned us all into germaphobes.”

And the keyboardist revealed this had affected him, just before our interview

“I got the bus back from Shoreditch, and there were loads of people not wearing masks,” he explained.

“I had a mini panic, I thought oh I don’t like this, should I get off this bus, and I got quite angry in my head.

“For us it will be great to be travelling again, great to be playing again.”

After the success of their previous records you would be forgiven for thinking Alt-J might have been nervous about trying to create another number one album

But for Newman, the creative process is the best part of being in a band.

He tells LondonWorld: “The process I enjoy the most is the writing process, so it’s something I really look forward to.

“It’s not this pressure thing, it’s more of an opportunity to be given a lot of time to find ideas.

“I just see it as a space to exist in where you’re doing what you love to do the most.

“Knowing what you are writing will eventually find its way to the rest of the band, and then that will turn into something completely different that you can’t quite predict.

“And all of that is really exciting for me.”

Unger-Hamilton adds: “You start this as an artistic endeavor, and you can’t really change.”

The album is already getting rave reviews, with Rolling Stone dubbing it a “masterpiece”.

The slightly rocky singles show a different sound to the band from previous albums.

U&Me, with its apocalyptic skater video directed by Unger-Hamiton’s younger brother Prosper in Romford, east London, sounds straight out of 90s California.

And Newman and Under-Hamilton credit the new sound with the help of a 1960s amplifier, which “sounded great for the guitars, so we used it for the keyboards, drums, vocals and everything”.

“For me, I think the vox is the shining example of the musical inspiration we were trying to get at,” Newman explains.

“It was a sonic quality, rather than direct influences from other music.

“And I think we talked about it quite openly didn’t we, we didn’t talk about bands other than maybe Eels.

“But reamping everything through that one amp, it’s been quite a crucial endeavor in making it sound different to our other output.”

Finally, the pair told LondonWorld about their favourite hidden gems in the capital.

Unger-Hamilton revealed his top boozer in London, the Prince George in Dalston.

While Newman revealed his liked to spend his time walking around Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington.

“I don’t know if this is a common answer,” he laughed.

“I walk around there and I get lost quite regularly, quite frustrating really.

“I often use it as a shortcut, and it’s not a shortcut, it’s a maze.

“It’s nice to just see the cemetery and it’s this overgrown mess, which is also quite relaxing to walk around, and I like that.”

Alt-J’s fourth album The Dream is released on February 11.